Surrendering to Hunt is the second novel in Jennifer Ryan's Wyoming Wilde series, and the Wilde brother in this novel is Hunt Wilde, a police officer in Willow Fork. I found that I liked this novel just a tad less than the first book in the series, and for several reasons I'm giving it a 4.5-star rating.
First, the triggers, and there a quite a few of them, the main one being domestic violence. Cyn, the heroine in this novel has a sister, Angela, who believes herself in love with and lives with her physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive boyfriend, Rad. When we first meet her, she's on Rad's front lawn, having called the police in an attempt to get her sister to leave, and Hunt is the officer who shows up. As is common in domestic abuse situations, Angela refuses to leave, believing herself in love with her abuser. If domestic violence, graphic violence, kidnapping and murder are triggers for you, this is definitely not the book you should be reading.
Cyn and Hunt have had several run-ins in the past, due to the fact that he's caught her speeding on numerous occasions. Cyn, who owns the local beauty salon, has purple hair and lots of tattoos, is a wild child, with quite a reputation in town--a lot of it from men saying they slept with her, whether they did or not. That was a trigger issue for this reader, but, thankfully, it wasn't overdone. Hunt is attracted to the beautiful and fiery Cyn, and a large part of this novel is about their growing relationship after Rad hits Cyn in front of Hunt, is arrested, and swears vengeance. When he gets out of jail, Cyn's sister and her sister's newborn, Lana, suddenly go missing, the day before Angela and finallly planned to take her baby and leave Rad for good. As if that wasn't enough, there's also been a series of local burglaries, some violent, and one ending in murder, and Hunt believes that Rad is behind them, but finding him is a major problem--and will they ever manage to find Angela and baby Lana, unharmed? As always, you'll just have to read this novel to find out.
Although this was a very good romantic suspense read, there was certainly no mystery about who the perpetrator was, and for some reason I just didn't feel as emotionally connected to these characters as I did with the characters in the first novel, which was Hunt's brother, Chase's story. Nevertheless, this was as well-written as have been all of the Jennifer Ryan novels I've read thus far, and if you can get past the trigger issues, I'm happy to recommend it.
I voluntarily read an advance reader copy of this novel. The opinions stated are my own.