Brief Thoughts: Reason to Believe (Bullet Catcher's novella)

Reason to Believe

by Roxanne St. Claire
Bullet Catchers #3.5 (novella)
Also part of the What You Can't See anthology

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  3.5 Stars

**I only read Roxanne St. Claire's Reason to Believe.

I may or may not come back and read the rest of the novellas at another time.

”You weren’t paying attention to Protection 101.  I go where you go.”

Yes.  Thank you.  I was wondering about that exact thing on certain occasions (**cough**cough**Thrill Me To Death**cough**cough**), and was delighted that at least someone realizes that bodyguard work does not equate to “wandering off alone on independent investigations” or “asking the bodyguard to go somewhere else because it seems more important”.


The Story in Brief:
Reason to Believe was a decently told short novella featuring Chase Ryker (who was first introduced in the second book, Thrill Me To Death, and actually drew my attention with his subtle, yet charming personality).  The assigned principal is a TV psychic, Arianna Killian, who has hired the elite Bullet Catchers because she has been receiving malicious visions of a murder; however, Chase is under the impression that Ari has requested a guard due to nasty, threatening e-mails, which is also part of the problem, but not her main problem.

Someone out there wants Arianna to stop doing her psychic thing, and Ari knows that this person is willing to kill her if she doesn’t comply.  But her first hurdle is to figure out how to get Chase to believe that she is truly psychic so that he will take her seriously about this ethereal threat to her life.


Overall Thoughts:  Reason to Believe is intriguing and exciting, much like all of Roxanne St. Claire’s works that I have read so far.  Well written and decently suspenseful, even if some things don’t make sense, I still find myself properly entertained by each story.  This short novella was no different, though I will admit that it was somewhat more exciting than the previous two full-length novels--only the ending seemed to screw up the progressive flow of the story line for me.

Ari and Chase are both likable, relatable characters; and I love that Ari comes off blunt, straight-forward, no-nonsense, and pretty outspoken.  While she and Chase have their face-palm-worthy moments, I wasn't really too bothered by them as I have been for other characters from other books in this series.

The novella presented a sweet romance (though a bit too insta and too abrupt for my liking, but I’ll take it) and a good crime mystery and enough of a twist that I found that I really DID like it enough to overlook the unfortunate ending hour quibbles that surfaced--the closing chapters of this novella felt rushed and made little sense.  The paranormal aspect of this book was typical psychic investigation formulas, but an irksome deux ex machina in the last chapter really didn’t do much to help matters.

Nor did the throwing out of “Protection 101” that made me groan and roll my eyes.

Otherwise, I was satisfyingly entertained.


***

Other stories in this anthology:

• Deliver Us From Evil by Allison Brennan
• Redemption by Karin Tabke

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This review was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in MonthYear.

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