Review: See How They Run by Bethany Campbell

Title: See How They Run
Author: Bethany Campbell
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Grade: B+
Reason for Reading: I don’t remember where I heard about this book, but I loved the idea of this plot, and I was curious about it.

Synopsis:

Bestselling author Bethany Campbell delivers a harrowing story of Trace and Ricky, autistic twins who witness a mob hit. Their “idiot savant” abilities can provide evidence to the crime, so the twins are placed in the witness protection program along with their teacher, Laura Stoner, and Mick Montana, the street-wise ex-cop who helps them. They soon realize their protection isn’t going to be good enough, because someone wants them dead, and they can’t trust anyone.

My Thoughts: I have mentioned a time or two that I am not a fan of romantic suspense in general. I keep trying books in this subgenre because I keep hoping to be pleasantly surprised by characters who manage to behave like real people and have a convincing romance despite their circumstances. Very few RS books work for me, either because I don’t buy the romance or I don’t buy the suspense.

I bought both in this book. Laura is my favorite type of heroine. She’s not a conventionally kick-ass woman, but I thought that she possessed an amazing amount of inner strength. She behaved sensibly, and I loved her combination of compassion and practicality. Furthermore, she didn’t shrink from doing what needed to be done, which was a refreshing change from the annoyingly stupid pacifist heroines I usually see running around.

Montana’s a great hero, too. He’s a bit grittier than a lot of the heroes I’ve been reading lately, and I actually couldn’t tell right away if he was going to be the book’s hero. Plus, he is physically disfigured, and not in a particularly sexy way, which I thought was cool. And while he was most definitely alpha, I bought that he could have been a former washed-out cop. He was sufficiently gritty, and he didn’t always act chivalrously and he didn’t do anything stupid. Plus, it was just nice to read about a guy that wasn’t a member of an elite anything.

The kids were great secondary characters, too. It’s obvious that Ms. Campbell did her research, and she imparted her facts about autistic people in a way that felt natural.

I also really liked the suspense plot. It was quite gritty, but this has been the first book I’ve read in a while where we are confronted with intelligent villains. They were perfectly detestable, but their actions made sense, and so justice prevailing at the end (shut up, this is a romantic suspense so it’s not a spoiler!) felt deserved, rather than merely tacked on.

That being said, there were a couple of violent scenes that were written in gritty detail that I could very easily have done without. I’m not too squeamish as a reader, but torture? Not so much my thing.

Still, this book has the distinction of being a romantic suspense I actively liked, so I would definitely read more by Ms. Campbell.