Rating: ★★★ +.5 | Release Date: 05/22/18 | Contemporary Romance | 7 hours 37 minutes
Police Lieutenant Greer Burns, nicknamed The Grim Reaper by his police recruits, has kept a brick wall up his entire adult life, but he hasn’t been able to keep out his attraction to his brother’s roommate Danika Silva–who is also one of his new recruits.
I swear, this fictional NYPD Academy must be an Internal Affairs nightmare.
I’ve really struggled with the premise for this series and I wasn’t looking forward to this book. I didn’t like the power dynamics of the whole lieutenant/recruit thing and I side-eyed a lot of how Danika is put on probation for not following protocols while her male roommates get away with breaking worse rules in other books.
But gosh darn it to heck, Bailey got me in the end and I enjoyed this romance. The characters of Danika and Greer are developed so well and I liked how their relationship unfolded. I think what Bailey does so well is creating characters who have most of their life together but have emotional gaps for their partners to fill. In the book, Greer needs someone that tells him he doesn’t have to be perfect and break up his self-imposed solitude and Danika needs someone to tell her she doesn’t have to do everything for her emotionally dependent family.
I did this on audio and let me tell you, narrator Jacob Morgan has the perfect deep and gravelly romance hero voice. At first, I thought his affect was kind of flat but it actually fits the stern lieutenant and there are a few moments where he really brings out his performance. Lola Canela also does a great job and I love her voice–I don’t know if her Colombian accent for Danika was real or not but, she also had to do a few lines in an Irish accent and did an admirable job. These two flowed well together and kept their characters consistent. It didn’t feel awkward going from the male POV to the female.
The Academy books work really well as a series (though I could go without the first one) they flow together nicely and I love how the friend group develops along with the relationships, it makes the world feel more realistic.
That is if you can get past the whole reckless cops thing.
*Received as part of the Avon Addicts program
