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Colton's Vow
Going undercover at a wedding…
May place her heart in danger.
Dani Colton is visiting her family’s exclusive Arizona resort to attend her sister’s wedding. But when her siblings persuade her to use the occasion to get close to guest Matthew Bennett, she’s conflicted. Matthew’s aunt, their stepmother, may be responsible for a series of dangerous “accidents” at Mariposa. Dani must find out whether Matthew is colluding with his relative. But the powerful attraction smoldering between them is a huge obstacle. What if he’s guilty? And if not, how will Matthew react when he finds out she’s been deceiving him?
From Harlequin Romantic Danger. Passion. Drama.
Feel the excitement in these uplifting romances, part of The Coltons of Arizona
Book 1: Colton's Last Resort by Amber Leigh Williams
Book 2: Colton's Deadly Trap by Patricia Sargeant
Book 3: Colton at Risk by Kacy Cross
Book 4: Colton's Reel Danger by Kimberly Van Meter
Book 5: Colton's Vow by Charlene Parris
Book 6: Colton Reunion by Addison Fox
May place her heart in danger.
Dani Colton is visiting her family’s exclusive Arizona resort to attend her sister’s wedding. But when her siblings persuade her to use the occasion to get close to guest Matthew Bennett, she’s conflicted. Matthew’s aunt, their stepmother, may be responsible for a series of dangerous “accidents” at Mariposa. Dani must find out whether Matthew is colluding with his relative. But the powerful attraction smoldering between them is a huge obstacle. What if he’s guilty? And if not, how will Matthew react when he finds out she’s been deceiving him?
From Harlequin Romantic Danger. Passion. Drama.
Feel the excitement in these uplifting romances, part of The Coltons of Arizona
Book 1: Colton's Last Resort by Amber Leigh Williams
Book 2: Colton's Deadly Trap by Patricia Sargeant
Book 3: Colton at Risk by Kacy Cross
Book 4: Colton's Reel Danger by Kimberly Van Meter
Book 5: Colton's Vow by Charlene Parris
Book 6: Colton Reunion by Addison Fox
267 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 27, 2025
7 people want to read
About the author
Charlene Parris
13 books1 followerCanadian author Charlene Parris has been reading books for as long as she can remember, and romance stories since high school. She writes Romantic Suspense because she loves adding twists and turns to her stories. She admires smart, independent heroines with sharp wits, strong heroes who respect them, and of course, a happy ending. When Charlene isn’t writing, you will usually find her reading with a cup of tea in hand, walking outside, learning a new move in the gym, or practicing yoga (beginner here!).
Find her at https://charleneparrisauthor.com
Follow her on Bookbub to get alerts when there is a new release or sale: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/charl...
Find her at https://charleneparrisauthor.com
Follow her on Bookbub to get alerts when there is a new release or sale: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/charl...
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 12, 2025
1.5 stars
It's not giving romantic suspense, it's giving confusion. I've never picked up a romance in a series that must require you to read the other ones more than this one. (and it didn't even seemed labeled as a series). Even with that, the characters never do anything that makes sense. I was just bored or annoyed the whole time. The sex scenes gave me cringe and I read some campy stuff.
It's not giving romantic suspense, it's giving confusion. I've never picked up a romance in a series that must require you to read the other ones more than this one. (and it didn't even seemed labeled as a series). Even with that, the characters never do anything that makes sense. I was just bored or annoyed the whole time. The sex scenes gave me cringe and I read some campy stuff.
July 2, 2025
Colton’s Vow is a non-sensical, meandering mess which relies on making characters Too Stupid to Live™ to inject a thimbleful of suspense.
_____
Summary:
Dani Colton is the half-sister of the three characters who own the posh Mariposa resort outside Sedona, AZ. She’s an ex-pat American living in London, working in marketing, but randomly speaks Epcot British English like she’s about to join Dick Van Dyke’s troupe of chimney sweeps. Bloody! Crikey! Blimey! - she says, during sex.
Dani heads to the resort for her half-sister’s wedding (FMC from Book #1) but her siblings want her to spy on Matthew, their estranged evil father’s new wife’s nephew-ward turned disgruntled business manager. [Insert the Spaceballs Father’s, Brother’s, Nephew’s, Cousin’s, Former Roommate joke here]
Set aside how Matt doesn’t know about Dani, even though she’s the biological daughter of the guy married to his adoptive mother. Or why Matthew is even invited to this small wedding given the family tension…
Dani decides the way to do the espionage thing isn’t by asking basic questions, but via banging. No one asks her to pull a honey trap because that would be insane, but the way Dani is written I think she is, in fact, USDA-certifiable. She wants fast-casual sex, which sure! Get it girl! But we’re also informed she never has sex and certainly not for pleasure! Egads, guv! - she probably says, during sex.
Matt is instantly attracted to this nutter by the way she shops with him while he’s buying fancy pajamas for his cousin and her cop husband at the local lingerie, sex toy, and coffee maker shop. He’s also into the way she analyzes Cameroon soccer and the way she looks in a bikini. He ignores that she acts like four unmedicated raccoons trapped in a trenchcoat for half of their encounters, because…orange bikini.
They hook up, she leaves before he wakes up, it’s a whole thing where this adult woman has never slept over at a dude’s place. She feels guilty not telling him that she’s a secret spy and also the Maid of Honor in this wedding they are both going to – but he and the family have already established he’s not there for sabotage, they just forget to tell Dani. So…
Nothing happens in the middle of this book except wedding-related tasks and disjointed flirting/fretting about distances. He never figures out why a woman who barely knows the bride is party planning, gift buying, and is mysteriously absent whenever a wedding thing is going on. And that’s on Matt for being So Stupid It’s a Miracle He Remembers to Breathe.
There’s a tiny dose of intrigue injected at the very end via a previously unknown evil mustache-twirler of an uncle. Will this group of dummies allow the guy to lure Dani to a remote mountain top to do a basic stock certificate-for-money trade? Of course. Because without that epic bit of stupidity this book would lack even a slight breeze of tension, let alone danger.
_____
Thoughts: Wut? Seriously.
If you can picture a dog that tilts their head to the side when it hears something confusing, that’s me.
Since Book #1 in the Coltons of Arizona series, the installments have been a downhill slide, but Colton’s Vow literally and figuratively is off a cliff. I do think this group of writers tried their best with a total dud of a series long plot. It just didn’t work.
Colton’s Reel Danger #4 was an exception, in that it had an interesting non-resort plundering story. However, that one suffered from trying to carry the bad series storyline and forced a super rushed conclusion which mangled a satisfying HEA.
My biggest complaint, outside Book #1, is the lack of suspense in the Romantic Suspense line. The threats are whether a family of rich kids gets to hang on to their super posh resort or lose it to their shitty dad and step-monster. Maybe threats to people’s wallets provide suspense to some readers, but I couldn’t possibly care less about those stakes.
The way this series slaps on safety threats relies on extreme coincidence (like in Book #2’s guardrail sabotage), because these are really just white collar criminals and crappy parents fighting about money.
In each installment, we get to the end and the bad guy/threat/killer is someone who has nothing to do with the rest of the story. In several, we never met the culprit at all until the last 10% or they were mentioned so quickly you have to look back to recall where they were. This is poor storytelling and not the promise of the premise in a line of books marked as Suspense. That implies tension, which just isn’t here.
I can’t judge this writer by this book, because you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But I really hope the next Coltons series in Alaska isn’t this disappointing.
———
Harlequin Romantic Suspense (June 2025)
Standalone/Series: The Coltons of Arizona #5, if you read as standalone it would make even less sense than it already does
Themes/Tropes: romantic espionage? maybe?, fancy resorts in the desert, threats to people’s businesses and wallets, faster burn, secret keeping from romantic interest, dysfunctional families, wedding events - snore
Steam/Spice Level: open door, in the bed, more detailed two love scenes
Setting: Sedona, AZ
POV: third person, past tense, multi POV between both MCs and antagonist
Cops/LEO: a secondary character is a local cop, but he doesn’t factor in at all
Does the Dog/Horse/Cat Die? horses are all uninjured
BIPOC Characters: N/A
LGBTQ+ Characters: N/A
Religion: N/A
_____
Summary:
Dani Colton is the half-sister of the three characters who own the posh Mariposa resort outside Sedona, AZ. She’s an ex-pat American living in London, working in marketing, but randomly speaks Epcot British English like she’s about to join Dick Van Dyke’s troupe of chimney sweeps. Bloody! Crikey! Blimey! - she says, during sex.
Dani heads to the resort for her half-sister’s wedding (FMC from Book #1) but her siblings want her to spy on Matthew, their estranged evil father’s new wife’s nephew-ward turned disgruntled business manager. [Insert the Spaceballs Father’s, Brother’s, Nephew’s, Cousin’s, Former Roommate joke here]
Set aside how Matt doesn’t know about Dani, even though she’s the biological daughter of the guy married to his adoptive mother. Or why Matthew is even invited to this small wedding given the family tension…
Dani decides the way to do the espionage thing isn’t by asking basic questions, but via banging. No one asks her to pull a honey trap because that would be insane, but the way Dani is written I think she is, in fact, USDA-certifiable. She wants fast-casual sex, which sure! Get it girl! But we’re also informed she never has sex and certainly not for pleasure! Egads, guv! - she probably says, during sex.
Matt is instantly attracted to this nutter by the way she shops with him while he’s buying fancy pajamas for his cousin and her cop husband at the local lingerie, sex toy, and coffee maker shop. He’s also into the way she analyzes Cameroon soccer and the way she looks in a bikini. He ignores that she acts like four unmedicated raccoons trapped in a trenchcoat for half of their encounters, because…orange bikini.
They hook up, she leaves before he wakes up, it’s a whole thing where this adult woman has never slept over at a dude’s place. She feels guilty not telling him that she’s a secret spy and also the Maid of Honor in this wedding they are both going to – but he and the family have already established he’s not there for sabotage, they just forget to tell Dani. So…
Nothing happens in the middle of this book except wedding-related tasks and disjointed flirting/fretting about distances. He never figures out why a woman who barely knows the bride is party planning, gift buying, and is mysteriously absent whenever a wedding thing is going on. And that’s on Matt for being So Stupid It’s a Miracle He Remembers to Breathe.
There’s a tiny dose of intrigue injected at the very end via a previously unknown evil mustache-twirler of an uncle. Will this group of dummies allow the guy to lure Dani to a remote mountain top to do a basic stock certificate-for-money trade? Of course. Because without that epic bit of stupidity this book would lack even a slight breeze of tension, let alone danger.
_____
Thoughts: Wut? Seriously.
If you can picture a dog that tilts their head to the side when it hears something confusing, that’s me.
Since Book #1 in the Coltons of Arizona series, the installments have been a downhill slide, but Colton’s Vow literally and figuratively is off a cliff. I do think this group of writers tried their best with a total dud of a series long plot. It just didn’t work.
Colton’s Reel Danger #4 was an exception, in that it had an interesting non-resort plundering story. However, that one suffered from trying to carry the bad series storyline and forced a super rushed conclusion which mangled a satisfying HEA.
My biggest complaint, outside Book #1, is the lack of suspense in the Romantic Suspense line. The threats are whether a family of rich kids gets to hang on to their super posh resort or lose it to their shitty dad and step-monster. Maybe threats to people’s wallets provide suspense to some readers, but I couldn’t possibly care less about those stakes.
The way this series slaps on safety threats relies on extreme coincidence (like in Book #2’s guardrail sabotage), because these are really just white collar criminals and crappy parents fighting about money.
In each installment, we get to the end and the bad guy/threat/killer is someone who has nothing to do with the rest of the story. In several, we never met the culprit at all until the last 10% or they were mentioned so quickly you have to look back to recall where they were. This is poor storytelling and not the promise of the premise in a line of books marked as Suspense. That implies tension, which just isn’t here.
I can’t judge this writer by this book, because you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. But I really hope the next Coltons series in Alaska isn’t this disappointing.
———
Harlequin Romantic Suspense (June 2025)
Standalone/Series: The Coltons of Arizona #5, if you read as standalone it would make even less sense than it already does
Themes/Tropes: romantic espionage? maybe?, fancy resorts in the desert, threats to people’s businesses and wallets, faster burn, secret keeping from romantic interest, dysfunctional families, wedding events - snore
Steam/Spice Level: open door, in the bed, more detailed two love scenes
Setting: Sedona, AZ
POV: third person, past tense, multi POV between both MCs and antagonist
Cops/LEO: a secondary character is a local cop, but he doesn’t factor in at all
Does the Dog/Horse/Cat Die? horses are all uninjured
BIPOC Characters: N/A
LGBTQ+ Characters: N/A
Religion: N/A
Read
May 1, 2025Contemporary Romance, Multicultural & Interracial Romance, Romantic Suspense
Miniseries
The Coltons of Arizona (Book #5)
Miniseries
The Coltons of Arizona (Book #5)
May 28, 2025
Quick easy enjoyable read
May 29, 2025
Great series
August 23, 2025
A fun romance. A lovely wedding. An interesting family twist.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews