Shell-shocked after a nightmarish school shooting, Amalie Pope retreats to an aging plantation house near Bordelaise, Louisiana, to heal, physically and emotionally. She's there barely an hour when a tornado rips through bayou country, mercifully leaving the house intact. She's stranded, but unafraid until a knock on the door. Four escaped prisoners barge inside, and in an instant Amalie is a hostage again. These men are wounded, desperate and dangerous with one exception. Undercover DEA operative Nick Aroyo is on the run with the gang he's infiltrated. The only thing he wants more than this collar is to protect fragile, frightened Amalie, who has surrendered herself to his care, body, soul and heart. But he'll have to play the thug in order to keep her and his secret safe, because even though the storm has passed, the danger remains.
Sharon Sala is a Native Oklahoman and still lives within a two hour drive of where she was born. First published in 1991, she is a New York Times/USA Today, best-selling author with a 135 plus books published in seven different genres, including Romantic suspense, Mystery, Young Adult, Western, Fiction, Women’s Fiction and Non-Fiction.
Industry Awards include: Eight-time RITA finalist. (Romance Industry award) The Janet Dailey Award. Five-time Career Achievement winner from RT Magazine. Five time winner of the National Reader’s Choice Award. Five time winner of the Colorado Romance Writer’s Award of Excellence. Heart of Excellence Award., Booksellers Best Award. Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award RITA, presented by RWA. Centennial Award from RWA for recognition of her 100th published novel.
I've been curious as to how this story would play out after reading the first two books in this series, which delivered the build-up. I think Sala did a pretty good job with the story. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but I still liked it a lot.
Series Note: Third book in Sala's "Storm Front" trilogy. The three books are tied together by a common event - a tornado going through town - but I think it may be possible to read them independently.
Summary: Amalie Pope only recently barely survived a school shooting where she taught and afterward decided to return to her hometown of Bordelaise, Louisiana in hopes of putting it all behind her and conquering her PTSD. But shortly after arriving at the house her grandmother left her, a tornado strikes, knocking a huge tree limb on her car and leaving her stranded.
To make matters worse, four prisoners have escaped from the local jail due to the storm damage and end up taking Amalie hostage and using her house as a safe haven until they can get out of town. What Amalie doesn't know is that one of the prisoners, Nick Aroyo, is really an undercover DEA agent. Nick hates what is happening to Amalie, but he's stuck in the situation. Even though he can't change anything, he'll make sure Amalie isn't harmed. But in the process, the two end up falling in love.
Review: The premise for this book has been building since the first book in the trilogy and through the second where you learn about the four prisoners and the debate over whether they escaped or were killed by the tornado. So it was great to finally get to read the whole story there.
I really liked Amalie in this story. Poor woman's been through hell, first being shot at a graduation night school shooting, then a tornado, then being held hostage by four prisoners. She shows a lot of guts in this story, persevering through it all. She starts off a little meek but by the end she's got a set of brass balls and really shows how strong she is. I liked her a lot. And Nick is great, too. His dedication to keeping Amalie safe and the romance that develops between them is sweet. He seemed like an all-around good guy. And I also liked that the romance was more prominent in this book. Of the three books of this trilogy, I think this one had the best balance between romance and suspense.
The plot was fairly good. It's perhaps not the most original - escape prisoners holding a woman hostage, woman falling for one of the guys holding her hostage who is really an undercover agent. It struck me as a bit common, but throw in a tornado, the southern bayou ambiance and it was a story that worked.
Even so, I kinda wished more time had been spent on Amalie surviving a school shooting and her recover - physically and emotionally from that. That's such a huge, emotional thing and I just wanted more of that aspect of the story. Instead, the escape prisoner/hostage thing took over the story and shoved Amalie's recovery to the side. I was disappointed in that. Which is really the only big criticism I had of the story.
This was a good trilogy from Sharon Sala. I did wish the stories were more connected on a character level - really, the only tie-in is the town and the tornado - because the felt a bit too separate in certain ways. But I liked the series. Sala is a good storyteller and almost never fails to suck me into her books.
The story is so interesting. I couldn't put the book down. I read it in a day. Nick Aroyo is an undercover DEA agent. Amalie Pope just survived a school shooting and now a tornado and has 4 men come to her home and take her hostage, she falls in love with Nick but the other three prisoners are mean to her. Still she takes care of them, feeds them, is kind to them. One is out to rape and kill her but Nick saves her and they fall in love. She gets away and escapes with Nick but he goes back to the house where the other prisoners are and tells them she escaped while she goes to find her friends home 5 miles away on foot. She arrives exhausted and he takes care of her. He takes her to the police and she saves Nick. The other three are arrested and taken to prison. They take Nick away to but he goes back undercover. They think he was taken to a different prison. There is an accident and Lou escapes when the prison van causes an accident ... he goes back to hurt Amalie but Nick and the police save her. She kills Lou in the end and her and Nick live happily ever after. Just an awesome storyline. I loved every minute of this book, I was never bored with it at all. Sharon Sala writes the most exciting stories!! LOVE her books!!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
This time around we’re in the bayou, old family, serous small town world. A twister hits and three tales commence. #3 -This woman was traumatized but overall brave. Most of the drama is from her climbing out of past fears. -The male character is a good match for her. -The premise was nothing new but still entertaining enough. -The bad guys were like many others and their characters were not very deep. -I loved the neighbor. -Sala is a strong writer when it comes to action scenes. She is also masterful at writing three storylines that happen simultaneously. -I really liked the ending of both this installment and the trilogy on the whole.
Survival theme combined with escaped prisoners? Awww yeah, this was going to be awesome!
Until it wasn't.
The heroine was a giant, spineless mess Okay, so Amalie was shot during a school massacre and suffered from PTSD. That wasn't my problem (I don't mind damaged heroines), but she was just so pathetic throughout the book. Every time we were reading about her, she was whimpering, crying, screaming, gasping, flinching, fainting, hyperventilating, begging, hiding behind stuff... etc. When she needed to step up to protect herself, she cowered but when she was supposed to shut her mouth and not make a bad situation worse, she got sassy and started talking back to the bad guys.
The characters were made to suit the plot I know it's fiction so saying they were acting unrealistically sounds weird. However, it felt more like they were puppets whose personalities were randomly changing to suit the plot rather than the plot changing based on the choices they made. They kept doing things that were completely out of character. It kept throwing me off because I really didn't know who was who (and not in a "wow, so much suspense!" way), or what they wanted.
The religious undertones They say "Lord" 25 times and "God" 42 times. There is also stuff like "God.. where are You? Why is this happening to me again?". That capitalised "y" makes me nuts, I can't stand religion in my books.
Sudden switches in POVs We started off with the POV changing when the chapter did. But then we somehow ended up with having a couple of random paragraphs from the heroine's POV within Nick's chapter, then a sentence or two from the secondary characters. These all happened without any given indication so I would often have to backtrack to see why the hero was trying to rape the heroine whilst also running to her rescue from the other room, only to realise we actually just jumped POVs for a second.
Other stuff that sucked > There was no build-up to anything, things just HAPPENED. It was all very disjointed. > The author seemed to change every "shouted" and "yelled" to "screamed", so we had at least one person screaming something on every page. > There was no chemistry between Amalie and Nick. Nada.
This is my first Sharon Sala book and I really enjoyed the story. The love scenes could have had a little more heat to them but at least they were there! =)
Amalie Pope (h) suffering from PTSD after she was shot at the school were she taught, is returning home to Louisianna. The Vatican is the plantation house that has been in her family since 1804 and where she grew up living with her grandmother, now that her grandmother passed away (she had a heart attack when given the news that Amalie had been shot) she's moving back to the Vatican as the last living Pope. Too bad for her that she happens to arrive just as a tornado hits and four escaped prisoners take cover in her house and hold her hostage.....not good for someone with PTSD.
Nick Aroyo (H) has been undercover for the DEA with the French drug gang for a long time and he almost has everything he needs to put them away for a long time. Unfortunatly they get arrested at a local bar on a friday night and he has to spend the weekend in jail waiting for arraignment on monday morning. Then a tornado hits and rips the back of the jail off and all of his people start to make a run for it. Having no choice he goes with them, one of them is injured pretty badly so they need to find a place to hold up for awhile until they can get some help from a friend. Nick finds a huge old plantation house that looks to be empty and leads the men there. Only there turns out to be a young woman living there and now it's up to Nick to keep his cover while making sure no harm comes to her.
This was a pretty fast pace, easy read. The secondary characters I felt were done well, they are criminals so were not supose to like them but I did like how Sharon Sala wrote them, some not as bad as others. The one thing that just about made me take off a * was the epilogue. Not only did it feel like she was way too rushed to tie things up but it was so sickenly sweet that it was enough to make my stomach hurt.lol
This book is a very nice follow up to the first two. The first one was pretty weak. The second one was very good as to the suspense aspect, quite creepy in fact. This one had good suspense plus a much more solid romance than the first two.
The heroine, Amalie, a survivor of a school shooting, has just returned to Bordelaise where all three books are set in time for the tornado which all the books revolve around. She is dealing with PTSD and fragile health. She manages to be a strong woman standing up to the criminals invading her home without being to stupid to live. She is scared and it shows but she tries to keep it under control. She also has human empathy for the most severely injured convict. She doesn't immediately fall for the undercover DEA agent, our hero, Nick. She worries about Stockholm syndrome and begins to not be so afraid of him but she doesn't trust him.
The suspense plot was believable and the characters seemed real and not just cardboard cutouts of bad guys and good guys.
This book stayed pretty focused on the main couple. The use of secondary characters was kept to a minimum and were, all but one, characters we had seen before.
The writing was clear and didn't bog down in too much introspection but focused mainly on the action with just enough of their thoughts to explain the actions and help you see the couple falling in love.
If you've read the other two books you'll like this one. These books btw can really be read in any order without missing anything since they take place concurrently.
This had some promise -- there were moments I really liked, like making head-"gang" member/sort-of-bad-guy Tug likable at some moments, and neighbor/old man Louis was someone who had more depth than I expected. But man: the explosive Lou just seemed stupid; hero Nick was not someone I loved (though yes, he did seem dashing and generally like a nice guy); some moments seemed a little over-dramatized, some a little unrealistic; and the ending came too soon + too neat -- like it was following a plot line. Not as much punch in other areas, too, considering this is Mira -- I mean, I don't need graphic detail, but some sort of tug of emotions would have been nice. The suspense factor was decent -- not sure if I'll read the first 2 books and/or follow future books.
The third book in the Storm Front series and my favorite of the bunch. Amalie Pope has only just arrived at the old plantation house near Bordelaise, Louisiana, when a tornado hits. She ends up being held hostage by four escaped prisoners. One of the prisoners is undercover DEA agent Nick Aroyo.
Never a dull moment. The story ran at a fast pace and kept going til the end. Exciting and entertaining. Highly Recommended.
This was my favorite of the Storm Front Series. It grabbed me from the beginning until the very end! Both the Hero and the heroine were very strong character's that you felt like you could be friend's with. The story was intense and at times you wondered if the situation could get any more complicated. Great book!
I loved this book. I think it was the best in The Storm Front trilogy. I loved the ending. It had lots of twists and turns and kept you guessing. Amalie is an amazing woman.
This was a very good romantic suspense story. The love story thankfully didn’t take a backseat in the story.
This story takes place in Bordelaise, Louisiana. This story is about a woman named Amalie Pope. She survived a nightmare school shooting in which she was a teacher. She retreats to a plantation house that she inherited near Bordelaise, Louisiana to heal physically and emotionally. She’s there barely an hour when a tornado 🌪️ rips through bayou country leaving the house she’s staying at intact. She’s stranded and unafraid until there’s a knock on the door.
Four escaped prisoners barge inside the house where Amalie is staying. One of the guys is named Nick Aroyo. He is an undercover cop with the DEA. He is on the run with the prisoners to get information with the gang he’s infiltraded. All Nick wants to do is to protect fragile Amalie. Amalie has surrendered herself to his care while the prisoners are staying there. He will have to play the role of a thug in order to keep her safe as well as his secret. Even though the storm has passed danger still lurks. I liked how Nick protected her from the bad guys. I liked how there was a chase in the bayou and Nick was able to get to Amalie to protect her. This was a good suspense story and I loved the romance in this book.
This is the third and last story in this series and they all were great. They tell the story of a small town in Louisiana that was hit by a tornado and the three events that took place during that time. They are each written in present time so you see everything from three different advantages. The third story concerns four prisoners that escaped from the town’s jail when the tornado swept through the downtown and knocked down part of the walls of the jail. Even though this is not the type of story I usually read, the author handled all three stories with sensitivity for the parties involved. Amalie Pope had survived a school shooting with a shoulder injury and had come to her family’s plantation house to recover. Her grandmother had recently passed away and Amalie was ready to start a new life here. Unfortunately the four prisoners needed a shelter and transportation to escape the police who were looking for them. This is a great story that you will really enjoy when you realize just how strong our heroine is and that love really does conquer all.
I generally really like this author, however this one left me a little disappointed. Amalie was trying to start over after a tragic event and the death of her grandmother by moving to Bordelaise, La. in typical storytelling fashion a tornado powers through the area knocking out power and leaving her stranded and alone. Meanwhile a group of 4 escaped convicts are on the run from the storm and ultimately wind up seeking shelter in none other than the home Amalie just moved into! Unbeknownst to her , one of these convicts is an undercover agent trying to keep her safe and not blow his cover A cute read!
Sharon Sala's works always sneak up on me because I don't consider myself a "romance" reader, but the descriptions of her books never sound romantic and they don't even read that romantic until the very end. This was a fun story.
I really enjoyed the dynamic between Amalie and Nick. Sala's heroine is as snappy and sarcastic as ever and Nick's got that too-hot-to-handle vibe going for him. I loved that Amalie Pope's ancient mansion was called "The Vatican." I wish my house was cool enough to have its own name.
Sharon Sala knows how to keep you interested in her books by writing believable scenarios in which her characters excel. Amalie Pope was recuperating from a high school shooting and has come home to the Vatican. Nick Aroyo is undercover DEA officer in a gang that barges in her house and stays as one of the men is badly wounded.
This is the most exciting and well written story I have read in a while. The story will be running through my mind for days on. Is this something you retold from days of running the ranch with your Bobbie or just something that popped in your head?Anyway a wonderful story of intrigue and love found. I am glad I found this one. Well done Sharon.
It's definitely a page turner! Evil has a face of hate with no regret that I hope and pray I never meet. When 4 escaped convicts crash into Amalie's life after surviving a traumatic life-threatening event, she can't believe God is forcing her to endure more terrifying situations. Could not put this one down! Great book, great ending!
This book is a short story, not a novel, so was the last one in this series. Sharon is a great writer but these first three in this series are a ripoff. They end just as they start to get interesting.
This one was okay. The romance part was lacking. Their love/attraction felt forced and off. The secondary characters (the 3 criminals) are basically dumb sh*theads so don’t expect any smart move from them. I liked the setting. 2.5 stars
The book had my attention from start to finish. They are plenty of action just the way I like them with some romance thrown in. I would recommend it to family and friends. I have read other of her books she is a great writer. So enjoy yourself with a good book.
I tried reading another book by this author that was horrible because of all the strange symbols and characters in the formatting. This book did not have that problem. It was a quick read and enjoyable.
Keeps your attention first page to last With very little effort on your part You can read and get interrupted and return later without missing a beat Hope you enjoy as much as I did
I really enjoyed this book. Will definitely check out every book on the shelves at my local library written by Sharon Sala. Also read Blood ties and Blood Stains. My new favorite writer!
What an awesome book. I have read the first two in the series and simply love them. And this one does not disappoint either. The character seems so real in the situation also. I highly recommend