The New Bad Thing

“Trouble doesn’t strike every day, it likes to wait until the last possible moment.”

In a world where a nondescript terror organization is inciting fear, Teagan Penn, a reporter for a popular Seattle entertainment magazine, is feeling the pressure of her personal life. As the highest paid reporter at the magazine, she has a knack for putting people at ease and allowing them to bare their souls, including a lot of high profile celebrities. Desperate to have a family, she throws herself into a human rights project as a distraction from her fertility issues. Blinded by her zeal for the project, to save innocent women and children, she trusts the wrong people and finds herself involved with an international criminal organization.

In Paris for an important meeting, she is a victim of a terror attack. After killing two terrorists in self-defense, she is interrogated by a CIA operative who is also working for an Italian crime syndicate. Whisked away to Italy, her husband soon joins her. During this whirlwind of events, she discovers that she is finally pregnant. Now she has to navigate the dangerous demands of Una Banca in order to keep her family safe.

The excitement in this book starts right from the first chapter with our protagonist caught in the middle of a terror attack. As the story unfolds, switching from past to present was a little hard to follow and the overall storyline was pretty far-fetched. If you can suspend belief, then you will enjoy this much more. The characters were colorful, but I’m not sure the author truly captured the angst that fertility issues can cause or fully explained how she was sucked into an underworld of crime.

There were a lot of action scenes that were well choreographed and kept you on the edge of your seat. The suspense lagged in the middle but increased again toward the end. There was a twist that I didn’t see coming and I did enjoy the final confrontation, but I felt the ending was a bit abrupt. I would have liked a bit more resolution, although I do see how this can continue on in a series and I’m intrigued where the author will take the main character in the next book. Some of the structure was a bit awkward but the storyline was decent. Overall, I thought this was good and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys spy thrillers.