ARC Review: Perilous Trust by Barbara Freethy

This book starts off really fast paced and draws you right in to the story line. In the very first scene, Sophie's father, Alan, an FBI agent, leaves her a message. The message turns out to be his dying words and his instructions for her survival. In the message he tells her run and don't trust anybody, especially his fellow agents. The issue is that one of those agents, Damon, has been in Sophie's head since she had a one night stand with him 4 years ago. Damon didn't know that Sophie was the daughter of his FBI mentor and Sophie didn't know Damon was an agent in training at the time of the hook up. All they knew was that they were in the middle of a bad moment and the chemistry between them was undeniable.

Fast forward four years and Damon is basically the only person Sophie can sort of trust. They both set out to follow the cryptic clues her Father left her to determining who inside the FBI is a mole and just what Sophie's Father was into. The book rotates POV's between several of the characters but is mostly told from Damon and Sophie's POV. The characters are strong and the mystery is well conceived.

For me this book lost some of it's steam about a third of the way in. Once Sophie and Damon are on the road, the plot develops slower than I would have liked. I was also hoping that the chemistry between Sophie and Damon would be more obvious. The author uses flashbacks to explain how Damon and Sophie were attracted to each other in the past. My issue is that I just didn't feel the chemistry in the story told in the present tense. The other thing is that I felt like the mystery and suspense kind of lulled at places in the book. If you read the first few chapters of this book, it's exciting and you feel like this is going to be one of the heart racing suspense novels. But there are parts of this book where I think the author tries to focus on Damon and Sophie's personal relationship and the mystery and suspense slow way down. 

These books are best for readers like me when both the romance and the suspense maintain their intensity. Because this one hit some down times, I ended up feeling like it was definitely good but I still wanted something more.

**ARC provided by Author**

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