This is the fifth and final book in the In Safe Hands Series. Book one is titled Landon, and is free.
Melissa
I escaped.
For the first time in almost four years, I’m free.
My freedom came at a steep cost, leaving me on my own with no family or friends. I have a lot of healing to do, and this beautiful lake house seems like a perfect setting to find myself again.
I can do this.
The only thing I have left is hope.
Jeremy
I ran.
For the first time in my life, I’m alone.
I failed to appreciate what I had until it was too late, and now I can’t bear the grief of my friends while suffering my own. That’s not the only reason I’ve relocated.
Twenty-two people were murdered, including the woman I love.
The only thing I have left is revenge.

— Goodreads — Amazon —

I’m a full time author who is hopelessly addicted to Dr. Pepper, love stories, sunshine, and men with full sexy lips, though not necessarily in that order. A voracious reader since I sounded out my first word, I started writing as a teenager and rediscovered my love of writing as an adult. Originally from Indianapolis, I now live in a small Kentucky town with my college age son.

I love to hear from readers so please feel free to contact me or connect with me on Facebook or Twitter.

— Website — Facebook — Twitter — Email —

Holy. Shit. That’s it. That’s my review.

Ok, not really. Jeremy is the EPIC conclusion to the In Safe Hands series by S.M. Shade. And by epic, I mean GLORIOUS. If you haven’t read the series yet, go start now, because Jeremy releases May 22nd. When this beautiful baby showed up on my kindle, I dropped everything else to start reading this. I was not disappointed. I was expecting epicness, because it is S.M., and she always delivers, but this -THIS- put me in a book hangover.

Do you know when you’re reading a book, and you check to see how many pages are left because IT’S GOING DOWN, and you think Wait, there’s not enough pages left! How can the book be almost over? How?! Yeah. It’s that kind of book.

If you’ve read the series, I think we all expected Jeremy’s book to be about him getting his head out of his ass and finally being with Frannie for real. When she died, I think I cried, (I’m a crier- I cry for everything). Jeremy mourns the only way he can- by getting piss drunk for an entire month. In that month, he meets Melissa, but doesn’t really remember being a huge jerk to her in their interactions.

Melissa isn’t looking for her soulmate. She escaped a cult, and is trying to find herself again. She meets Jeremy, but being the epic mess he is while he’s drunk, she doesn’t really like what she sees. She’s a mess too, she just goes about coming to terms with her life in different ways, more mature ways. She buys a house, starts painting again, and tries to cope with the things that happened when she was in the cult; the cult her sister is still in.

Jeremy and Melissa feel a pull to each other, but due to circumstances out of their control, they try not to get involved with each other. I’m not going to give it away, but let’s just say Jeremy continues to be a jerk while also trying to help out Melissa. And when he wants to be, he is the biggest sweetheart ever.

I love him. Probably more than Mel does. Maybe.

Even though Jeremy moved away to deal with the loss of Frannie, the guys don’t give up on him. We get to see the whole crew together, doing what they do best: Take down the bad guys. They’re like the secret Justice League. I loved them all coming together to help Jeremy and Melissa, like the family they are and the family Mel needs.

Even with the dark themes in this book, S.M. Shade had me laughing. Her balance of dark and light was perfect. She brings enough suspense to keep you on your toes, with enough humor to break up the tension. Her characters come to life in a way that makes you feel like you’re watching a movie instead of reading a book. As far as conclusions go, this was a SLAM FREAKING DUNK.

By the way: this review was so hard to write. I want to talk about this book so bad but I also don’t want to give it away because duh, it’s better when you read it yourself. So if anyone wants to talk to me while they read it so I can freak out about it all over again while they’re reading, I am SO down for it.