Christine Besze-Revenge

Christine Besze is a new author to me, but I’m definitely going to be keeping my eye out for her, especially for the rest of this series, because I really liked Revenge, and I’d like to see how Axel and Zane do in later books. I think Axel is going to be the next one, and I have a sneaking suspicion on who he’s going to be with, but we’ll have to wait and see. But today, we’re going to talk about Asher and Charlee.

Asher was a cop. He had a lovely wife and they were just about to have a son. Then he came home and his life suddenly changed. He found someone beating the everloving hell out of his pregnant wife. He tries to save her, but he gets knocked the fuck out, and she gets shot. With his gun. Then he gets arrested, by his own force no less, gets tried and found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, and sentenced to 6 years in prison. Which he survives, but he’s not the same as he was.

When he gets out, his brother Zane is there, and he takes Asher to the house that he designed specifically for his revenge. He’s positive he knows who is behind his wife’s death, and he’s going to make him pay.

Charlee’s dad is a crime boss. She doesn’t want to be dragged into his life, and she does everything she can in order to stay away from him and his life. But then, Asher and his brothers take her. She’s just part of Asher’s revenge plan.

I waver back and forth on my opinions on Asher. I feel sorry for him, because of what he went through with the loss of his wife and unborn son, and then being charged and found guilty in their deaths. But sometimes he’s a right prick. I don’t know what he was like before he went to prison, but the years in prison definitely changed them, as they would, of course. I’m not always sure how much of him being a prick is because he’s really a prick or because he’s learned to shut his emotions down and has serious hyperfocus and everything outside of his hyperfocused revenge plan just gets ignored, including how Charlee might feel. I’m glad he has his brothers there, because they smack him upside the head as needed, both metaphorically and literally.

Charlee has a lot of fire and sass. I think it works well for her, most of the time. I don’t think that she was too isolated by her father, but there was some there at least. She has a pretty accurate view of her dad and what he does for a living. I don’t blame her for wanting to get away from him. I feel like we don’t get to know Charlee as much as we get to know Asher. The book is told in dual POVs, I just feel like we get more of Asher’s POV and state of mind. It doesn’t bother me, because I think it works well in this book. I don’t think I would like it in other stories, but like I said, I think it works really well here.

I felt sure that there was someone involved in a way in which they weren’t. It was one of those, hmmm, it would seem like it would work.

OK, that’s all for this one. Go check it out. Happy reading!