Review: "Lost Cause" by Elise Faber

Lost Cause by Elise Faber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A year of surveillance finally pays off for FBI agent Lex Blackwell when Frankie Lyon's estranged father shows up at her natural products store in the darkness before dawn. Francis Lyon is a known criminal but charges against him never seem to stick, and Lex believes Frankie is somehow involved in her father's crimes. The truth is that she is just as much a victim as those Lex has sworn to protect, and her father's reappearance in her life is both unwelcome and dangerous. As soon as he realizes Frankie's innocence, Lex stops fighting his attraction to her, but she may not be so quick to forgive him for the chaos and destruction he's brought into her life. He'll have to find a way to keep her safe and win her heart at the same time.

The investigation took several interesting twists and turns over the course of the story, and the author did a great job of ramping up the tension as the threat to Frankie from her father and his criminal activities grew. It didn't happen quite the way I expected it would, but I was very happy that Francis got what was coming to him in the end!

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as happy with the central romantic relationship between Frankie and Lex. There's a thin line between alphahole and just plain a**hole, and I don't think Lex came down on the right side of it. I get that he was supposed to be protective and dominant, and he was also reacting to the fact that he had been betrayed in the past, but it was all just too much for me. Further, I thought Frankie let him off the hook for his behavior way too easily. There needed to be a lot more groveling before she jumped into bed with him.

Despite those frustrations, I'd recommend "Lost Cause" for anyone who enjoys romantic suspense and/or angsty contemporary romances. I look forward to Faber's next release.

*Review copy provided by the author. All opinions expressed are my own.

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