Title: The Executioner (Professionals #10)
Author: Jessica Gadziala
Published: October 2021
Publisher: Self Published
Readership: Adult
Genre: Romance
Rating: ★★★★★
I received a copy of The Executioner from the author in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Bellamy
It was supposed to be an easy job.
Get another scumbag off the streets.
I never could have foreseen her ruining the plan.
Or having to whisk her away on my jet for both our safety.
And I certainly couldn’t have anticipated finding myself starting to fall for the blunt, sarcastic, kick-a$$ woman I found myself trapped in a safe house with.
Shawn
I never saw myself getting kidnapped by a billionaire and dragged around the world with him.
I definitely couldn’t have seen myself starting to have feelings for the walking red flag of a man.
What can I say? When it came to men, I’d never had the healthiest of taste.
But this Bellamy guy, he was the craziest of the bunch.
And despite the warning alarms ringing in my ears—and, you know, the bullets aimed at our heads—there was no denying that I was starting to fall for him.
To say that I have been hanging out to read this book is a serious understatement. Bellamy has been one of the most intriguing characters in the Professionals series so far and I was excited to finally read his book.
Bellamy works for a Fixer company, and his job is the last resort – he’s the person they send in when they need a target killed (hence the moniker ‘The Executioner’). He’s former military, from a well-to-do family, and has a bad habit of drugging and kidnapping his (workaholic) friends to give them holidays so they can take a break. But he meets his match when he crosses paths with Shawn, a woman in the wrong place at the wrong time… or so he assumes.
Bellamy and Shawn were two sides of the same coin – characters with dark/damaged pasts who’ve managed to make their way in a world that would have seen them fail. For all his potential faults, Bellamy is fiercely loyal to those he cares about and would do anything to protect them, and he finds himself taking Shawn under his wing. So while he comes across as a dark, forbidding character because of his more recognisable actions, he’s actually got a strong moral compass and sense of what’s right and wrong. With this book falling under the romantic suspense (maybe blurring a little into dark romance) we know that he’s a character who’s done bad things, but for the right reasons.
Thankfully Shawn is not a damsel and is more than capable of standing on her own two feet, and – more often than not – puts Bellamy back in his place. She was fierce and capable and entirely enjoyable to read.
The other thing I love about this entire series is how we get to revisit each character we’ve met before, as well as get hints at which stories are coming up next. There’s enough in here to tie this book into the Professionals (and Navesink Bank) universe, while also being a book you can read on its own – although I do highly recommend the entire series.
This was just fun and low-angst from start to finish.
Noveltea Corner 