OUT OF TIME by Lisa Phillips is the 10th book in the Brand of Justice series. It’s the fabulous, action packed story of Kenna Banbury, owner of Banbury Investigations, and Oliver “Jax” Jaxton, FBI Special-Agent-in-Charge from Phoenix. Kenna is trying to work on a case for a client while trying to find answers about her family’s past at the same time. Jax, as always, will be acting as her back up. All they really have to do is survive!
Kenna’s knowledge is that her mother died when she was a baby and her father was distant and secretive meaning she knows very little about her family’s past. Preston Lightwood, who spent 20 years in jail for murdering his wife, has always held to his innocence. Now out of jail, he wants Kenna to find the person responsible to clear his name and to put this behind him once and for all. While having no desire to accept Preston as a client or to go to the UK, the lure of finding answers about her heredity lures her into accepting the challenge. As luck would have it, Kenna’s boyfriend – Jax, will be attending a work-related FBI conference in the same town at the same time. Besides having him there to watch her back, his intel for certain questions will definitely be a major plus.
Because of Kenna’s past and her very real fears, Jax is willing to take their relationship as slow and easy as she is comfortable with. With a ring in his possession, he’s ready to pop the question and start their life together - when the time is right. In the meanwhile, one thing is for sure - Jax will do anything to help Kenna to find her answers and to protect her with all his resources and his life.
When it become evident that there is someone out there that is targeting everyone Kenna holds dear, they decide to split up the team – part going with her to the UK, while the other stays at home searching out information and making sure Maizie, a teenage Kenna’s taken under her wing and considered a dear friend, that runs tech support for the business, is safe. She has already gone through so much hell in her few young years and the team agrees that she need protected at all cost. Kenna takes it as a personal threat when someone she loves is in the line of danger. Now is no exception – especially when she feels the threat is because of herself. She’s willing to face any and all dangers head on to protect those she considers as family. Will it be enough?
Will searching about her past have Kenna questioning what she thought she already knew? When attacks upon Kenna almost take her out, dare she even think about what will happen to the others if she’s not there to take the blows? When the team ends up all together will it be a help or a hindrance? How can she openly search for the ones she needs to or work to find evidence when all at once she’s the number one wanted person in this country in which she is not a resident? What is Operation Sunflower & The Frankfurt Initiative and how does it relate to Kenna? When she meets up with Bruce, will he be the ally she needs? Can Kenna bring three factors of her life – her life as she knows it including memories buried deep within, her parent’s life through what she remembers as well as written and verbal accounts, and the disturbing facts she learns about things that have gone on before them all up to the present - into one living color picture of reality? The big questions is - can they out maneuver danger, find some details about Kenna’s past, clear Kenna’s name and get back to New York with them all in one piece? Will all the danger and missing Jax have Kenna beginning to see her life with Jax in a new way?
OUT OF TIME is an exceptional, fast-paced, gripping, danger in your face and lurking everywhere story that will keep the characters on their toes and you turning pages as quickly as you can often while holding your breath. Lisa Phillips gives us a book with intrigue, danger, family – which often of the making and not by blood, two generational timelines with small snippets of first-hand accounts between Kenna’s parents, romance and nail-biting suspense that will leave you wrecked, satisfied and longing for the next new adventure all at the same time. OUT OF TIME is without a doubt FIVE STAR reading!
Although OUT OF TIME is part of a series, it can most definitely be read as a standalone book. It won’t take you long to get up to speed on the characters and their contribution to the unit and their relationship to one another. This was my first book in the series, but it most definitely will not be the last, and I had no problem getting acquainted with everyone right off.
I receive a copy of this book with no requirement or expectations of a review. All opinions are completely my own.
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