Next of Kin (A Rebel Ridge Novel, Book 1)

So she calls the only ones that can help her. She calls her family that live on Rebel Ridge. Her family on Rebel Ridge is an intermarried bunch that happens to include the love she left behind. Ryal and Beth were high school sweethearts. As soon as she's close to home, he plans to hide her in a remote location that the mob boss can't find her in. As they spend time hiding, they both realize that her disappearance was not because of their young love, but because of her parents. But what the mob boss didn't anticipate was the very large family that lives on Rebel Ridge.

And it takes all of them to keep Beth safe. And together they mend both of their broken hearts and come together again. Coming together as adults ready for a full relationship. So while they are hiding out on Rebel Ridge Mountain, they rekindle their relationship and even get engaged. There are several scenes and some have some details.

They don't last long and can easily be skipped over with missing a thing. This is the type of book that you can read again and again. I know I have. And I still get worked up when I read it! So the fact that her parents destroyed all their attempts to keep in touch was a bit weird. They each think the other didn't want to stay together. So they have ten years of anger at each other that they barely address when they get back together. They basically just fall into each others arms and everything is wonderful. I think they needed to talk more about stuff. For example, I myself wondered if either of them had had a relationship in the intervening years.

Surely they did too? They didn't talk about anything like this. So the romance just wasn't believable or particularly gripping. There was a much better development to the suspense side of the story. We spent a lot of time in the POV of both the villain and the villain's son. I was very curious to see more of the villain's son and would in fact like to see him turned around and maybe become the hero of a further book.

The suspense element was pretty well done although I did wonder at view spoiler [ the ease with which the heroine's cousins, whom she hadn't seen in 10 years were willing to kill the attackers instead of merely disabling them and tying them up etc. After all, this is basically murder.

How did they know that all of the guys were evil? I mean sure, the reader did, but the characters didn't. The lead attacker might have just told them they were going up the mountain to scare someone for example. The cousins didn't know whether or not they were merely some Joe off the street hired to provide muscle and not knowing what was going on.

And then there didn't seem to be any repercussions. And we know that the police don't just let you kill people because you think they're evil and might be attacking you. I received this as an arc from NetGalley. Beth Veneable witnessed a murder by a crime lord. She was put into witness protection but after 3 compromised safe house stays, Beth decided to take her chances on her own.

Her attempt to stay alive takes her back home to Rebel Ridge, the home she fled 10 years ago as well as her first love Ryal. Ryal has a 10 yr grudge against Beth, but her life is more important right now. But can he forgive her for breaking his heart? It was a well w 3. It was a well written simple story. It was suspenseful and interesting storyline. The secret that made them run surprised me because I didn't think you could keep secrets in a small town.

Obviously Beth didn't have any friends because she was the only one out of loop. I thought she should have grovelled more but I guess Ryal is a gentlemen and didn't want to make her beg. A solid contemporary romantic suspense, coherently plotted and very well narrated by Kathe Mazur. Sharon Sala reminds me of Linda Howard. Her heroine -- in some scenes -- displayed the same gritty determination to survive and the same bedrock honesty. However, Sala is not as gripping as Howard, because her heroes are somehow slightly weaker, and not as earthy, bo Audio listen.

However, Sala is not as gripping as Howard, because her heroes are somehow slightly weaker, and not as earthy, bold, and bad ass -- at least, not in this book, nor in the other book I've read, Jackson Rule , written under her pseudonym Dinah McCall. What did Beth do? She view spoiler [ stood outside and gazed openly at the helicopter that suddenly appeared hovering over her house, while she was hiding from the mob. Since Beth was always shrewd, I didn't buy it. Some readers might be offended by the fact that the hero and heroine are 4th cousins, and that they first became lovers when she was 17 and he was A good read, with better suspense than romance.

I especially liked the Walker brothers and their cousins -- loved seeing all the Walkers and Uncle Will Venable and Grandma Lou Venable team together to protect eye-witness Beth from the mobster. Assassins think the Walkers are just dumb hicks and hillbillies, but they steal the show from Silas and his gruesome gang. The women helped defeat the baddies, too. Good finale battle scene up on Rebel Ridge. Good courtroom scene, but too short. The romantic parts are okay, too.

Separated after ten years, childhood lovers Beth and Ryal Walker are finally reunited. That reunion fell just a bit flat. They didn't act happy enough to see each other, especially after they talked out the source of the problem. Eventually they became all loving, but their relationship never quite hit my sweet spot.

I loved the secondary character Adam Pappas, the Mob boss's son. Adam goes through major character development. He really needs a book of his own. I wanted an epilogue for him, but that would violate the rules of romance, I suppose. I might read the sequel, where Quinn gets his HEA. Contents include several fairly explicit sex scenes, a few grim bloody scenes, murder, some swearing and profanity -- but not to excess. View all 4 comments. Mar 18, Cheri rated it really liked it.

The same premise of Kin Folk helping as Patrick Swayze's movie, but totally different. Nov 21, Jae rated it liked it Shelves: This is my first read by SS and must say that I was not very impressed.

Not impressed with the dialogues, the dynamics of the hero and heroine and certainly not with the wavering heroine. My Adam But I very much enjoyed the book because of the bad guys. Ike Pappas and his son Adam were the sole reason I gave it 3stars. I felt so deeply for Adam, being a son of the Mafioso boss was not what it cracks out to be. He was torn between the bad that was his father and the good that was his mother.

And This is my first read by SS and must say that I was not very impressed. And all hell broke loose when his mother was murdered This book should have been about Adam. He would have made an excellent tortured hero. Notice how I didn't even mention the hero and heroine's names. Their part in the book was very boring and mundane.

Enjoyed this more than I expected for a Harlequin Romance book; I skipped the hot sexy-bits. Reminded me a lot of Nora Roberts' The Witness , but with significantly less story development. Made a nice change from the s' mysteries by Carola Dunn that I've been reading for a couple of weeks.

View all 3 comments. Dec 22, Scooper Speaks rated it did not like it. Next of Kin fell into the miss category. My mother, who is in her late fifties, felt Favorite Line: My mother, who is in her late fifties, felt otherwise. She enjoyed the story and thought it provided a quick escape. I wonder if the author watched the movie Next of Kin before she wrote the story. As a young girl Beth fell in love with her cousin, but before he could marry her, her parents packed and took her from Rebel Ridge in the middle of the night.

Years have passed, but neither Beth or her former lover, Ryal, have forgotten the other or found new relationships.

Next of Kin

Both are convinced the other ended the budding relationship, but as with most close knit families nothing will stop Ryal from helping Beth when she needs him. See right there is part of the squickyness of Next of Kin. Not a third, fourth or fifth cousin or a cousin twice removed.

It impacted my enjoyment of the book big time. Her mother and his mother had been fourth cousins and not even close friends at that. It colored everything that happened in the book. Similar to the movie, the mob is on the move and an Appalachian native gets wrapped up in it. The killer is in the mob and seems to find Beth no matter where the police or FBI send her.

To protect herself she calls on her relatives and finds her way home to Rebel Ridge and by extension Ryal. Slowly the two work their way through the past. Beth discovers the reason she was taken from Rebel Ridge and the two lovers rekindle their passion for one another. Meanwhile, the suspense keeps building as the bad guys search for Beth. Eventually the story works up to the big obligatory battle between the backwoods men and the city slickers and yes, bows and arrows are involved. I seem to be in the minority though. Everywhere I look I see four and five star reviews of Next of Kin.

Have you read it? What did you think? Jul 08, T rated it did not like it Shelves: I know there are a lot of Sala fans out there, but this was my first book of hers, and I stopped halfway through.

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It's very poorly written--I feel like someone made a software program where you enter in the plot points and major characters, and it churned out a novel. It feels that formulaic, in the switching between the POVs of the heroine, hero, and villains, and in the lack of emotional depth. I wanted to read this book based on the description after witnessing a mafia killing, Beth had to go to ground among her estranged family in Kentucky, including her long lost love. But I was quickly turned off with the flat portrayal of all the characters. After showing the intelligence, foresight, and courage to plan an escape from the incompetent witness protection program, Beth then hands herself off to her family and proceeds to sit around crying while every able-bodied man near her does all the work.

I'm not asking for her to be unrealistically unaffected by what she had witnessed and experienced, but I got tired of the redundant pattern of: Sorry, but I can't identify with a passive main character. View all 7 comments. Feb 06, Lisa marked it as dnf Shelves: Such lovely shelves, eh? I have no idea what to really say here except Are you kidding me?

Are you freaking kidding me? I will admit that I did not finish this book. That is probably why I'm in the minority here who did not rate this book 4 or 5 stars. Grown man meet little girl. So what if they're 4th cousins and their mothers didn't know each other? No wonder her parents moved her away under the cover of darkness to get her away from YOU. Again, so what if majority of the eligible women on the mountain are related to you and thus leaving you with slim fucking pickings.

That's what you do. Oh, and did I mention that he pined for her for ten years after she left? He wrote her letters and tried to get in contact but her sneaky SMART parents thwarted all his efforts. Feb 07, Nicole rated it liked it Shelves: Review originally posted here: How I got this book: After the third safe house gets found and hit, Beth thinks she would have a better chance of staying alive on her own with her family. She calls her uncle Will and makes arrangements to had home to Kentucky and the Appalachian mountains.

The last thing she expects is her childhood sweetheart acting as her protector.

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Ryal has always held a torch for Beth, and when he is asked to protect her, he gets the chance to finally put the past to rest. Unfortunately for Ryal, seeing Beth brings back all those old feelings and the last thing he wants to do is let her go again. As the crime boss comes closer to finding Beth, Ryal will have to pull in the family to keep her safe, but will it be enough to keep them both alive? From the standpoint of the suspense and mystery, Sala is one of my all-time favorites.

I think she writes wonderfully creative mystery stories and keeps the suspense at a level that is both believable and fast paced.

I really did love that aspect of the book. I thought the crime boss and his son were a wonderful addition to the story, and I spent more time really involved in the story whenever they were featured. I liked the way their story was resolved, especially with the son. I think the most difficult part of this book for me is that Ryal and Beth kept referring to each other as kin. But each time they kept referring to each other as kin, family, or cousins, I got a little weirded out. I was down with the redneck romance, until their relationship was referred to ALL the time.

It was weird and downright creepy. All in all this was a weird book to get through. On one hand I really liked the suspense story, and on the other I was a lot weirded out by the romance. I give Next of Kin a C Aug 02, Rose rated it it was ok Shelves: Its a story about a woman who witnesses a murder from her window, sort of in a "Rear Window" type way. Beth watches a couple arguing and th "Next of Kin" is the very first book by Sharon Sala I've ever read, so I can't say that I'm familiar with her work other than the fact that I received this as a galley in and am just now having the opportunity to read it I'm working through a rather long backlog.

Beth watches a couple arguing and then watches as the man in the argument slits the throat of his ex-wife. Beth works as an illustrator so when her friend calls the police, she's able to give them a sketch and identify the guy. But little does Beth know that the murderer is a major mob boss whom the police have been watching for ages. Any attempts to report against the guy are either intimidated or killed as far as witness testimony is concerned. Beth survives three attempts against her life, before calling her uncle and returning to the one place she would rather not be - back home to where she left a lover behind ten years ago.

The action sequences and tension are decent, as were the multiple perspective points predictable some of them might have been , but the romance irked me. I could've read this through a mental filter in that the hero Ryal and heroine Beth were supposed to have a purported romantic relationship since he was 25 and she was 17, and the fact they were distant cousins.

Author Sharon Sala's Next of Kin (A Rebel Ridge Novel)

But it was the fact that this notation kept popping up throughout the text over and over again that it really turned me off and I didn't like it at all. It felt like it was trying to constantly justify the relationship and force feed it. That threw me out of the story a few times as I read it. I also, to be blunt about it, didn't really see the connection between them all that much. Despite the letters Beth never got, despite the rather forthright love scenes, I just felt a disconnect in that measure through the entire narrative.

In the end, it was just an okay read. But there were flaws and things that bothered me and kept me from rating it higher. Jan 11, Vivian rated it liked it. Beth and Ryal were childhood sweethearts okay they were young adults but it just doesn't have the same ring to it ripped apart before they had a chance to build on their young love.

Circumstances led them both to believe that the other had turned away and eventually they moved on with their lives. Beth was taken away by her parents to California and Ryal continued to live in Kentucky. Fast forward a few years and Beth is a witness to a murder Now her life is in danger an Beth and Ryal were childhood sweethearts okay they were young adults but it just doesn't have the same ring to it ripped apart before they had a chance to build on their young love.

Now her life is in danger and she doesn't know where to turn since it becomes apparent the FBI can't do the job. Beth does the only thing she can think of and turns to her uncle for assistance and he, in turn, enlists the aid of her family and Ryal is front and center in protecting his lost love. Next of Kin is a nice romantic suspense read about forgiveness and second chances.

Beth and Ryal are forced to address their hurts and fears and gain a chance to rebuild their relationship. Beth is also reunited with her estranged family, especially with her grandmother. Sala provides a fast-paced read that illustrates the importance of family above all else. Although the end is expected, Next of Kin made for a delightful afternoon read.

The characters are realistic and the situations are all-too believable in this digital age. If you enjoy romantic suspense with a hopeful-ever-after ending, then this may be just the book for you. Feb 02, Melanie Chabrol- rated it it was amazing. You can run, but you can't hide