The Edge of Surrender is part two of Emma and Ryan’s story. Here be spoilers so be warned. The book starts where it left off on the cliffhanger, with Emma vanishing, leaving Ryan using all of his super SEAL skills in finding Emma. Part two is definitely the weakest part of the story for quite a few reasons. The pacing was off towards the end and the big climax of the suspense tailored off into a small whimper.
In The Edge of Surrender, Ryan and Emma are on the run because Emma can’t trust the FBI, or the government in helping her after it’s revealed there is someone on the inside helping the bad guys. Ryan and Emma stay off the grid, with the help of Jake, and to some extent, agent Alexa Mays. There’s a lot of sexual attraction between Emma and Ryan and they both give in numerous times. Their romance I enjoyed, but I had a huge problem with the ending.
There was no big final showdown and a lot of the reasons behind the plane crash and the people involved happened off-page, excluding a few action scenes involving the lackeys coming after Emma and Ryan. Like I said above, the romance was still super hot and smexy. Ryan definitely falls under protective hero mode, but thankfully he wasn’t an assholic alphahole.
Sadly I was really let down by the ending of the romance between Ryan and Emma. It was rushed with a lot of quick, “I love you” declarations and then that is it. Emma and Ryan are going be split apart with Ryan going back to work. No in-depth emotions and no real satisfying HEA. It really felt off, though probably realistic because of Ryan’s job.
I don’t really think splitting up the book worked and I still can’t figure out why it was done, though the cynic inside me does have a guess. Will there be more parts and will there be more Emma and Ryan? I doubt it as there was sequel bait between Jake, Ryan’ teammate, and Alexa, the FBI agent who was in charge of Emma’s kidnapping case. I’d definitely read more in the series but I hope the next book has better pacing and there’s no splitting up the book in two as I don’t think it benefits readers.
I give Edge of Surrender a C+