Deep Under by Lisa Renee Jones

Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer & Susannah Jones

I like romantic suspense and I’ve certainly heard Lisa Renee Jones’ name before but I hadn’t listened to or read any of her books. Susannah Jones narrates the Rock Chick books and I think she’s wonderful with them, so I decided it was time to check out LRJ’s brand of RS. Perhaps Deep Under wasn’t the best book to start with, though. It is the fourth book in the Walker Security series and there was clearly something of an ongoing story arc happening, about which I knew nothing going in. I did eventually manage to catch on and I ended up enjoying the book overall but I will say the start was a bit rocky for me.

The book is structured somewhat oddly. It begins with Mila’s first day on the job at Shivers, a Hooters-style restaurant chain which turns out to be owned by powerful cartel figure, Michael Alvarez. Unluckily for Mila, she attracts Alvarez’s attention and it becomes clear that her consent is not really something he cares about. Mila is the daughter of an FBI agent, who, along with Mila’s mother, was killed by people her dad was investigating. (Mila’s sister, Kara, is an FBI agent and was the heroine in a previous book.)

The next thing I knew, a year had passed and Kyle, a member of Walker Security and formerly an FBI agent, is about to go undercover as a bodyguard for someone high up in the Alvarez organisation. Kyle has only just confirmed that Alvarez did not die in a helicopter explosion. Alvarez set things up to look that way. Mila was thought to have been killed in that same explosion but Kyle, who has been searching for her for nearly the whole year since she entered Alvarez’s orbit, has a hunch she is still alive. He is best friends with Blake Walker, the hero of Kara’s book and Kara’s now-husband. It is clear that Kyle has more than professional feelings when it comes to Mila, even though they have never previously met.

I *think* that Blake’s and Kara’s book takes place during that missing year. Those who have read or listened to the earlier book/s in the series will likely have a big advantage over me. Because, frankly, I was completely lost there at the start. I felt like I had skipped over a massive part of the story.

It turns out that Kyle’s new job is to protect the very person he’s been looking for – Mila. He is supposed to tempt her and test her loyalty to Alvarez but instead, he is initially feeling out whether she has become truly loyal to Alvarez (whether or not by way of Stockholm Syndrome), all the while being intent on rescuing her and reuniting Mila with her sister.

Alvarez is a Very Bad Dude. He runs a sex trafficking ring and is also involved in drugs. The trafficked girls are forcibly addicted to heroin and their lives are awful. Mila made a deliberate decision to cooperate with Alvarez and gain his trust and get information so that she could try and close down the sex trafficking operation but this also meant that she had to pretend to be in love with Alvarez. It was always clear to me that what happened to Mila was nevertheless rape – Alvarez viewed her as a possession and, as I said earlier, consent wasn’t really a factor. If Mila had resisted he would have taken what he wanted – worst case scenario, she may have been tortured and/or given to the sex trafficking ring to be raped by many men instead of just one and/or killed.

Of course, Kyle and Mila fall in love while he is bodyguarding her. Alvarez and Mila are separated for most of the story – hence the need for the bodyguard at all, as Mila prepares to open a fashion line she has designed and which has been funded by Alvarez. It is clear that Alvarez wishes to draw Kara to Dallas, where the fashion line is housed, in order to kill her. Mila is desperate to protect her sister.

It took me a while to piece everything together. However, once I did, I began to relax and enjoy the story.

The violence is more alluded to than on page. There are a couple of flashbacks where Mila remembers a few things about Alvarez but they are not at all detailed. There is enough for listeners to know Very Bad Things happened but that’s it.

Because Mila and Kyle are alone together often, the story had the feel of a “cabin romance” and I was able to believe, in that pressure cooker environment, that their feelings developed quickly. I was even able to buy that Mila’s agency in the relationship was present and that Kyle wasn’t taking advantage of her even though some of his colleagues worried about that very thing. Mila made it explicit that she was in control of what happened with Kyle and for him to deny her was to diminish her. In another book, with other characters it may not have succeeded but it worked for me here.

I enjoyed the narration with some small caveats. Eric Michael Summerer did a creditable female voice – I did feel it improved significantly over the course of the book as it didn’t start off all that well – and mostly, his various male character voices were distinguishable. However, when Blake and Kyle were talking it was almost impossible to tell who was who – except for that Blake tends to use “fuck” every other word. Some of the other Walker Security staff were also occasionally difficult to distinguish.

Susannah Jones was very good. I admit I had a bit of a disconnect between my experience of her in the more humorous Rock Chick books and here, but that’s on me. Her male voices aren’t stellar but they’re certainly good enough for me to buy into the fantasy of the story.

I thought both Mr. Summerer and Ms. Jones delivered the extreme tension of the story very well – albeit sometimes Mr. Summerer overplayed it a little – and I certainly believed their portrayal of the romance between Mila and Kyle.

Overall, I’d call Deep Under a win, but I’d recommend perhaps starting with the first book in the series rather than book four as I did.

Kaetrin

Narration: B

Book Content: B

Steam Factor: Glad I had my earbuds in

Violence Rating: off page sexual violence/trigger warning: rape/sex trafficking and fighting

Genre: Romantic Suspense

Publisher: Audible Studios

Deep Under was provided to AudioGals by Audible Studios for a review.