The third book in the beloved #1 bestselling author's
sexy, romantic suspense Slow Burn series…
They say young love doesn't last, but a girl from the wrong side of the tracks with unique abilities and the hometown golden boy were determined to defy the odds. For Zack Covington, Anna-Grace—his "Gracie"—was the one. Until one night forever alters the course of their future, when a devastated Gracie disappears without a trace, leaving Zack to agonize over what happened to the girl he loved. As the years pass, his desperate efforts to find her uncovered nothing.
Now working for Devereaux Security, he stumbles across a painting featuring a special place only he and Gracie would know. The image is too perfectly rendered for it to be coincidence. His Gracie must be alive. When he finally tracks her down, he is shocked—and heart-broken—to discover the wounded shell of the girl he once knew and still loves. Her psychic gifts are gone, and worse, she believes he betrayed her all those years ago.
Zack has enemies, and once his weakness is discovered, Gracie becomes a target for revenge. He'll have to save her before he can earn her trust and her love. And he vows they'll never be torn apart again.
Book 3
Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
B&N ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
They say young love doesn't last, but a girl from the wrong side of the tracks with unique abilities and the hometown golden boy were determined to defy the odds. For Zack Covington, Anna-Grace—his "Gracie"—was the one. Until one night forever alters the course of their future, when a devastated Gracie disappears without a trace, leaving Zack to agonize over what happened to the girl he loved. As the years pass, his desperate efforts to find her uncovered nothing.
Now working for Devereaux Security, he stumbles across a painting featuring a special place only he and Gracie would know. The image is too perfectly rendered for it to be coincidence. His Gracie must be alive. When he finally tracks her down, he is shocked—and heart-broken—to discover the wounded shell of the girl he once knew and still loves. Her psychic gifts are gone, and worse, she believes he betrayed her all those years ago.
Zack has enemies, and once his weakness is discovered, Gracie becomes a target for revenge. He'll have to save her before he can earn her trust and her love. And he vows they'll never be torn apart again.
Book 3
Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
B&N ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
Zack Covington simmered with impatience as he waited for the go signal from his teammates. He didn’t exactly know what was going on in the basement of the McMansion—one not unlike he’d once dreamed of building for the girl he’d planned to spend forever with—but knew it wasn’t good. Sometimes bad lurked in seemingly benign locations. People existed in denial it could happen in their little corner of the earth. How very wrong they were.
It was a lesson he’d learned the learned the hard way. Coming from a small town nestled against the shores of Kentucky Lake, he’d thought—just as most of its citizens, likely—that they were impervious to bad. And Zack? He was more confident than most, because his father was the chief of police, and he’d grown up knowing his father’s job was to ensure the safety of the town, regardless of size.
But he’d damn sure failed when it came to Gracie. Everyone had failed her and Zack had lead the pack. His father’s refusal to use county resources on someone who didn’t belong anyway had caused a rift between him and his father that to this day hadn’t been mended.
It never would be.
Zack sighed as he contemplated the stately homes, the expensive cars, swimming pools behind high privacy fences and the immaculately landscaped yards. The white collar families who resided in the gated community that boasted top notch security would be horrified to know that evil lurked in their midst. The irony of it all, was that the affluent neighborhood had recently been voted the safest and most desirable communities to live in the greater Houston area. Hell, it had scored in the top five in the entire state of Texas and in the top twenty for the whole country. So yeah, these people were utterly convinced that they were safe.
But he knew better. Inside was a child. Just a baby. Well, not so much a baby as she was only two years younger than his Gracie. Goddamn it. Not here. Not now. It was no time for the past to intrude. Besides Gracie was hardly the beautiful, innocent sixteen year old girl he’d loved over a decade ago. She’d be twenty-eight now.
If she was even alive.
And she wasn’t “his” Gracie anymore. She wasn’t his anything.
Maybe he hadn’t been able to save Gracie. Maybe he’d failed her. But over his dead body was he going to fail this young girl whose dreams were as big as the sun. Not when the two most important people in her life—or at least should have been the most important—had failed her in every possible way.
Alyssa Delacroix had been a very promising ballerina at a very early age, a fact her mother had taken pride in when she’d participated in kindergarten recitals, received high praise and glowing local and state accolades. Later, when the demands of her training had encroached on both mother and father’s social lives, Alyssa had fallen far down the list of their priorities.
Until the father had received pointed threats, aimed at Alyssa.
The Delacroix’s had five children with Alyssa being the middle child, with two older brothers and two younger sisters. When Howard Delacroix had called in DSS, it had disgusted Zack that the man seemed irritated, not that his daughter was being threatened, but that he wasn’t the subject of the threat. It was a blow to his ego that evidently he was not as important as his daughter.
Pompous, arrogant pig who had no business having children. His wife was no better. Zack could only dream of the life they had—a life he once thought he would have—a houseful of children. Happy. And yet the couple was more concerned with their social standing than the care of their children.
They’d hired a nanny and it was the nanny who attended all sports events, dance recitals and provided the love and support the parents should have. And now she was dead, shot when trying to protect one of the younger Delacroix children when masked men had burst into the auditorium where the dance recital was being held, cut the lights, causing instant chaos when gunfire erupted.
The father? Had dropped like a fucking coward, hiding behind his wife, while the nanny had saved his son. Zack would like to put a bullet right between the asshole’s eyes for that alone.
The only reason Howard and Felicity Delacroix had even been there hadn’t been to see their daughter shine. They’d attended solely because the CEO of another oil company also had a daughter performing and Howard was in negotiations to merge the two companies because the competitor was looking to retire and Howard wanted to take over both companies and expand his “empire.” Hell, he and his wife hadn’t even sat with their children, leaving the nanny to tend to them while they sat a row back talking business while their daughters’ performed.
The target had been Alyssa. And Alyssa had been Zack’s responsibility. Hell, she was all of DSS’s responsibility, but Zack had been the closest, and in the clusterfuck that had ensued, a hysterical woman had blocked his pathway to Alyssa, a mere foot away, getting shot in the process and Alyssa had been abducted in a professionally executed hit.
This was no amateur operation, and Zack had to wonder why someone would go to such lengths to kidnap the child of a high profile oil mogul when the man took absolutely no security precautions, and if any research on Delacroix had been done at all and ransom had been the aim, he would have been the obvious choice.
He’d give up a hell of a lot of money for his own life. But for his children? Even Zack knew the answer to that, and he’d only briefly made the man’s acquaintance. He’d despised him on sight because he grudgingly had to part with some of his precious money to protect his daughter for “appearance’s sake.” After all, it wouldn’t do for it to get out that a father had ignored threats to his child, and above all else, Howard Delacroix had an ego the size of the state he resided in.
When the silence through his earpiece continued—and he’d already waited an interminable amount of time—Zack lost what was left of his patience. Fuck it. He was going in. The Delacroix’s may not give two fucks about their daughter, but Zack did, and he wasn’t about to sit on his hands when each passing second could mean the difference between life and death.
Stealthily, he crept toward the window of the guest room. DSS had pulled the floor plans of the housing developments—they were cookie cutter houses after all—and quietly inserted his knife around the edges and bottom of the window to loosen the panes. Only when he was able to slide the window upward, did he whisper into the com, “I’m in.”
Mary – ☆☆☆☆☆
Zack Covington works for Devereaux Security but his life is not how he dreamed it would be. He had the high school sweetheart and they planned to marry, he would play pro football for a while and then they would have children and live the rest of their happily ever after. When he came home from college one time, Gracie was gone. No one had seen her and his father, the chief of police, wasn't even gonna look for her. So now 12 years later and Gracie still haunts his dreams and his every waking hour. He still looks for her when he can. When the team is asked to go to a local art gallery for possible security work, who does Zack see but his Gracie. And she is terrified of him. He can't figure out why and she doesn't want him around. Will she be able to face him and tell him why she doesn't want to see him? And who is this Wade Sterling to Gracie? What will Zack do when he finds out what happened 12 years ago? Can he make her see the truth? And why has her ability to read minds gone too? I love this whole series and hope there will be more. But I have to warn you, this story will rip you apart with what happened to Gracie and Zack. But don't worry too much because Maya Banks will put you back together. If you love a great suspense story with romance, heartache and a little extra thrown in, then this series is for you. I hope you give it a read and that you enjoy it as much as I have.
Mary Jo – ☆☆☆
I have to admit I have been in a reading slump for the past few weeks but I have to say this book kept my interest until the end. This story is a bit different from the norm in that it’s the man that is holding on to true love and wondering what happened to the love of his life when she disappeared. Zack loved Anna-Grace or 'Gracie' as he called her. Loved her like no other, and has spent 12 years looking for her.
Anna-Grace has spent the last 12 years hiding from Zack and her former life and the betrayal of her very innocence by the man sworn to protect and love her for the rest of her life.
What worked/what didn't: I loved Zack's devotion for Gracie even when he wasn't sure where she was and why she left. However, in my opinion, it was overdone. For the first half of the book, Zack was busy explaining his point of view to anyone who would listen, and to Gracie, multiple times.
What I really loved what seeing Ari, Ramie and Gracie working together to resolve a problem.
Part of a Series: Slow Burn
Ruthie – ☆☆☆☆
This whole series has been a Slow Burn, and I shall miss the team of sexy individuals that makes up DSS – but I will sleep more! This is another good, intense and chunky book from Ms. Banks.
I thought the premise of the story was good, and when everything intersects, it is easy to assume one thing, for the author to then change the path on which we travel. The buildup of misunderstanding is possibly the most intense that I have read in a while, and I had to keep turning the pages to find out the truth – with strong suspicions in my mind. The journey taken by Gracie and Zack, from a very innocent romance to today made for a tumultuous story, and a fitting end to the series.
Also Available in the Slow Burn Series
Book 1
Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
B&N ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
For reviews & more info, check out our stop on the Keep Me Safe Blog Tour.
Book 2
Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
B&N ~ iTunes ~ Kobo
For reviews & more info, check out our stop on the In His Keeping Blog Tour.
Maya Banks is a #1 USA Today and New York Times bestselling author whose chart toppers have included erotic romance, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, Scottish historical romances. She is the author of the Breathless Trilogy, the KGI novels, the Sweet series, and the Colters Legacy novels.
She lives in the South with her husband and three children and other assorted babies, such as her two Bengal kitties and a Calico who’s been with her as long as her youngest child. She’s an avid reader of romance and loves to dish books with her fans and anyone else who’ll listen! She very much enjoys interacting with her readers on Facebook and Twitter as well as in her Yahoo! Group.
Connect with Maya
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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Safe at Last (Slow Burn #3) by Maya Banks to read and review for this tour.
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