Blog Tour: Into the Dark by Karen Rose

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

New York Times bestselling author Karen Rose returns with a new thriller in her chilling Cincinnati series. 
Michael Rowland is not your typical teenager. Deaf from birth, he’s always looked out for his five-year-old brother, Joshua. When his stepfather comes after Joshua, Michael takes the child and runs. He’s determined to protect his brother at all costs, even if that means making himself vulnerable to a danger he can’t hear coming. And the danger intensifies when Michael witnesses a stranger kill his stepfather.
Desperate and afraid, the boys have nowhere else to go but to Joshua’s soccer coach, journalist and ex-Army ranger Diesel Kennedy. When Diesel sees that Michael is injured, he takes them to see Dr. Dani Novak—not only because she’s fluent in American Sign Language, but because he’s drawn to her and everything she stands for. She never refuses Diesel’s requests—because she, too, feels their connection—but she resists him for reasons she doesn’t want to confess.
When Dani and Diesel learn that Michael saw the face of his stepfather’s killer, they fear for his safety. But they quickly discover that it’s even worse than they feared: They may have a serial killer on their hands—and all signs point to Michael as the next target. 
“[A] pedal-to-the-metal thriller with plenty of developed charactersand converging mysteries. . . . To call this book a page-turneris an understatement.”—USA Today on Say You're Sorry
“Rose writes blistering, high-octane suspense that never lets up.”—New York Times bestselling author Karen Robards

Happy Sunday! On the blog today, we have a very special treat.  I bring to you my spot on the blog tour for Into the Dark by Karen Rose.  Thank you to Anne Cater and the publisher for my spot on the tour and a copy of the book.  All thoughts are my own and completely unbiased. 

I absolutely adore everything Karen Rose writes.  She always encapsulates me into a bubble of frenetic energy and doesn’t let go until the very last page.  Shivers ran down my spine with her dark and compelling narrative.  If you haven’t read the rest of the books in the series then have no fear it is easy to read this on its own, Karen gives more than enough information to fill in the gaps. 

The opening scene is typical Karen Rose, I was gripped, and I was loving it.  Karen has built a wonderful collection of loveable characters in this series, including Police Officers, Counsellors, FBI etc.  The characters are strong and captivating, and I have loved them all.  She truly displays what is good and right with human nature and restores my faith in humanity time and time again.  She’s juggling a complex universe with a core of taut tension.  I cared deeply for all the characters, the true sign of an author with immense talent. 

Enter Diesel and Dani, this is a book that has been long awaited and boy did it not disappoint.  The love and affection that is obvious from Diesel is so utter endearing.  He doesn’t need many words to make that obvious, his actions are everything.  Their relationship is heart wrenching and I ached for them.  They have been through the proverbial wringer.  Life can be perfect and then it can be turned upside down.  Dani has struggled through a dark and painful past so much, so she now pushes away the best thing that has happened to her in a long time.  The author has captured the melancholic essence of the character so perfectly, nothing is forced or put on.  It is exactly as it should be.  She is such a genuine and caring soul.  Never one to put herself first, she is always concerned and worried about the wellbeing of others.  She runs a free clinic for people that otherwise couldn’t afford her help.  She’s a gem in the rough. 

Dani has her reasons for trying to push Diesel away.  In a lot of ways, she’s going through a period of immense grief.  She is grieving for the life that she had pictured for herself that now won’t happen.  It won’t get better in time.  Her HIV positive status is going to stay with her.  She doesn’t want to stop Diesel having the life that he deserves.  But, she also deserves to have a good life.  Diesel loves her more than anything and would do anything to make her happy if only she would let him.  So much is going on with her that she is struggling to see what is in front of her face. 

The thriller part of this story completes the magnificence of this novel.  I hope you enjoy a good helping of murder and gore galore.  Buckle in your in for a hellish ride.  This novel in my opinion is one of her best yet.  Karen Rose is back in a complete white-knuckle ride and I’m happy to be here experiencing it.  I didn’t want this book to end but at the same time I couldn’t stop reading, it was 3am before I knew it.  A dark and dangerously addictive read.

Internationally bestselling, RITA-award winning, author Karen Rose was born and raised in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. She met her husband, Martin, on a blind date when they were seventeen and after they both graduated from the University of Maryland, (Karen with a degree in Chemical Engineering) they moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. Karen worked as an engineer for a large consumer goods company, earning two patents, but as Karen says, “scenes were roiling in my head and I couldn’t concentrate on my job so I started writing them down. I started out writing for fun, and soon found I was hooked.”

Her debut suspense novel, DON’T TELL, was released in July, 2003. Since then, she has published more than fifteen novels and two novellas. Her twenty-third novel, INTO THE DARK, will be released in 2019.

Karen’s books have appeared on the bestseller lists of the New York Times, USA Today, London’s Sunday Times, and Germany’s der Spiegel (#1), and the Irish Times, as well as lists in South Africa(#1) and Australia!
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Her novels, I’M WATCHING YOU and SILENT SCREAM, received the Romance Writers of America’s RITA award for Best Romantic Suspense for 2005 and 2011. Five of her other books have been RITA finalists. To date, her books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

A former high school teacher of chemistry and physics, Karen lives in Florida with her husband of more than thirty years and her dog, Loki.
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