Hideaway

I definitely enjoyed this more than Corrupt, since I really dislike Michael and Rika as characters, and I was really interested in reading Kai's story. However, this ended up being more of a 3.5 star read for me - while I liked reading from Kai and Banks' perspectives a lot, and I did feel like the plot moved pretty quickly and was a fun read, there are a couple things holding me back from really loving the book.

While it makes sense considering Damon's relationship to Banks that a lot of her backstory involved him as well, a lot of the story, both past and present, just ended up feeling like it was setting up for the next book. Since I was excited to read Kai's story, I honestly felt like at times, that aspect took away from learning more about him and developing the romance. Considering that I didn't find that to be an issue at all in Corrupt (except for that scene in the sauna feeling quite random and obviously added to set up this book) I found it a bit frustrating that I barely felt like I knew Kai as a character by the end of this book. I also found that the romance wasn't super convincing a lot of the time (though there were a few scenes I really did like between them) and there was a lot of telling, but not showing, the connection between Kai and Banks.

I also found that the whole arranged marriage plot ended up feeling pretty rushed and unsatisfying IMO. There was so much build-up to that, and then we even got a hint that Kai might have been interested in Vanessa when she was introduced, and then the whole plot was just dropped almost immediately? There was also a weird offhand comment from Banks about Vanessa not being who Kai thinks she is, or something? It just felt like that plot thread was kinda left hanging, and I found it weird in terms of the pacing.

Despite all of that, I did breeze through the book, and still found it to be a really fun read! I've heard so many good things about Kill Switch, so I'm excited to continue the series.