A review by piscespaperbacks
Steel Resolve by B.J. Daniels

2.0

Steel Resolve is a perfectly fine story, with perfectly fine writing. The mystery has a good set up, the romance has a good set up, and generally it was promising. Unfortunately, you find out the main threat’s identity literally on the very first page. As the book developed, I understood why knowing the villain was necessary, but it wasn’t necessary to literally start the book like that when the reveal would have had much better impact by waiting even 30 pages. There is also a secondary threat whose identity is also told to the reader much earlier than it had to be. I think it just kind of ruined the tension that was supposed to be building. I did like the last climactic scene though.

My biggest complaint about this book was the treatment of Mary, the main female character. First of all, she has no personality or flaws. She’s just a pretty, feminine, non-aggressive, family oriented lady, and she’s treated like property by Chase Steele (the main male character) and the other man she is seeing. Chase continually tells her that he’s going to win her back no matter what, that she doesn’t have a choice in their inevitability, that she belongs to him and he’s not going to let her go. In some contexts, this could be romantic, but in this book it just read as creepy and aggressive. Not to mention that the romance itself left something to be desired since it felt like it developed really slowly given that this is supposed to be a romance novel.

So, this book is average at best and not very good to women at worst. Not my favorite.

An eARC copy was provided to me in exchange for an honest review, and all thoughts are my own.