NEW REVIEW: Beautiful Redemption (The Maddox Brothers # 2) by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Redemption 
by Jamie McGuire
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

LINKS:
Special early release 1/25/2015: iBooks
Release Date 1/27/2015:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

SYNOPSIS 

If A Maddox boy falls in love, he loves forever. But what if he didn't love you, first?

No-nonsense Liis Lindy is an agent of the FBI. Deciding she is married only to her job, she breaks off her engagement and transfers from Chicago to the field office in San Diego. She loves her desk. She is committed to her laptop. She dreams of promotions and shaking hands with the director after cracking an impossible case.
Special Agent in Charge Thomas Maddox is arrogant, unforgiving, and ruthless. He is tasked with putting away some of the world’s toughest criminals, and he is one of the best the Bureau has to offer. Though, as many lives as he’s saved, there is one that is beyond his reach. Younger brother Travis is faced with prison time for his involvement in a basement fire that killed dozens of college students, and the media want a conviction. Travis’s only savior is his unusual tie to the mob. In a deal that will spare his brother, Thomas has agreed to recruit Travis into the FBI.

Liis is stubborn, defiant, and yet somehow softens Thomas’s rough edges, making her the perfect agent to accompany him to the ceremony. Posing as a couple, they must travel to Travis & Abby’s beach vow renewal and give him the news, but when the pretending ends, she finds herself wondering if they were pretending at all.

In the second installment of the Maddox Brothers books, experience firsthand the mysterious world of the elusive Thomas Maddox, and how good love can be when you’re not the first, but the last.

MY REVIEW

Ever since Jamie McGuire first announced she planned on doing a Maddox Brothers spinoff series, I wanted Thomas. From the very start I saw something there, something intangible. In Beautiful Disaster, you could almost sense “it”, hiding beneath the surface, something so much more than just a solemn and cynical nature. He intrigued me. I wanted to know more because I knew there was more.

I even remember voting on Jamie’s Facebook page (way back when) for which Maddox brother she should do first. (Pretend I inappropriately capitalized on the perfect double entendre of “which Maddox brother to do first”). No surprise, I voted Thomas, but then we got Trent. At first I was bummed on a cracker, but after reading Beautiful Oblivion  (click here for review) all was forgiven, and I patiently waited for what I hoped would come next.

It came!

It came!

IT. CAME.

This was the missing link. So far, each story has been its own individual beautifully crafted puzzle piece. Each one printed with a unique depiction. But obviously they all came from the same puzzle, the same picture. Beautiful Redemption flawlessly connected them all together; it formed one complete image. Each piece perfectly linked by this story.

I found this fascinating.

The author intricately wove, and seamlessly connected Beautiful Redemption with the entire Beautiful Disaster/Maddox Brothers series. I believe here in America we call that talent. I think here in the literary world we call that Jamie McGuire.

Well done.

Liis is an extremely strong female character coming out of a failed relationship, realizing that her profession will continue to prevent any new love in the future. She’s okay with this, prefers it even, or so she thinks.

(Enters Thomas)

I think Thomas’s character may be the most compound of all the Maddox brothers. He possesses a heartwarming sensitivity that he constantly shields with a rough and strong exterior, a defense mechanism used to guard his vulnerability. There is something so attractive about an asshole with heart. His loyalty and absolute need to protect those he cares about is just one of the many complex layers of this perfectly complicated character. God I love him!

What I also loved about this book was the almost painful progression of the story. Painful in the most amazing way. Jamie McGuire knows how to write tension; it ‘s something that bleeds from every single page, of every book she writes. In Beautiful Redemption, she instantly gratifies us in the very first chapter, but strategically takes it away with a predictable yet entertaining twist in order to build the sexual tension she’s most famous for.

Though I loved the delicious tension, the push and pull may have been carried out a bit too long which may have robbed from other aspects of the story that I selfishly wanted more of. Though the bad guy drama ends with a bang, I was hoping for a little more of it to be part of the plot, perhaps some more action to compliment the relationship aspect of the book. The ending is great and it escalates to an Everest-like peak, but it was too quick. It wrapped up too fast. Maybe I just wanted more.

I always want more!

But the great part about wanting more is that by my count, we’ve got two brothers to go. I can’t wait!!

READ ON!

View all my reviews