BLOG TOUR - Witness Protection Widow

Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for Witness Protection Hero by Debra Webb.

DESCRIPTION:

Can the witness protection program keep her identity secret?

After Allison James finally escapes her marriage to a monster, she becomes the star witness in the case against her deceased husband’s powerful crime family. Now it’s up to US Marshal Jaxson Stevens, Ali’s ex-boyfriend, to keep the WITSEC widow safe. But as the danger escalates and sparks fly, will Jax be able to help Ali escape her ruthless in-laws?

Link to buy the book

MY THOUGHTS:

Title:   Witness Protection Widow

Author:  Debra Webb

Series:  Winchester, Tennessee #5

Genre:   Romantic Suspense

Publisher:  Harlequin Intrigue

Format:  Kindle ARC

No. of Pages:   256

Date of Publication:   February 1, 2020

My Rating:   4.5 Stars

This is not the first book I have read with a big, bad marshal protecting a witness to try and keep her alive until she can testify. However, as I have already seen by reading a few of Debra Webb's books before, she never lets her readers down. This was a fast-paced story where bad guys were always on the heels of our pair.

We have Allison James, who is willing to die trying in her attempts to testify against her ex-father-in-law. Our second player is US Marshal Jaxson Stevens, Ali's ex-boyfriend. Two things are clearly evident, danger is ever-present, and their feelings are as potent as ever. It has been ten years since they have seen one another. Ali since got married - unbeknownst to her at the time, to a man who was a mobster. Ali has first-hand knowledge that WITSEC is not as safe as she was promised.

Will Ali make it to the trial alive? When all of the danger is over will she and Jax have a second chance at love?

When I picked up this book, the action started so quickly that I never put it down until the last page. I haven't read any of the previous books in the series, but this story had no trouble doing well as a standalone. However, Debra Webb is a relatively new name to me, so if there are new books in this series to follow, I will certainly be reading them.

Many thanks to Harlequin and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.

Please enjoy the following excerpt:

She shivered. The fire had gone out. She kept on her jacket while she added logs to the fireplace and kindling to get it started. Within a couple of minutes, the fire was going. She’d had a fireplace as a kid, so relearning her way around this one hadn’t been so bad. She went back to the kitchen and turned on the kettle for tea. Bob growled low in his throat and stared toward the front door. She froze. Her phone was in her hip pocket. Her gun was still in her waistband at the small of her back. This was something else Marshal Holloway had insisted upon. He’d taught her how to use a handgun. They’d held many target practices right behind this cabin. A creak beyond the front door warned that someone was on the porch. She eased across the room and went to the special peephole that had been installed. There was one on each side of the cabin, allowing for views all the way around. A man stood on the porch. He was the typical local cowboy. Jeans and boots. Hat in his hands. Big truck in the drive. Just like Marshal Holloway. But she did not know this man. “Alice Stewart, if you’re in there, it’s okay for you to open the door. I’m Sheriff Colt Tanner. Branch sent me.” Her heart thudding, she held perfectly still. Branch would never send someone to her without letting her know first. If for some reason he couldn’t tell her in advance, they had a protocol for these situations. She reached back, fingers curled about the butt of her weapon. Bob moved stealthily toward the door. “I know you’re concerned about opening the door to a stranger, but you need to trust me. Branch has been in an accident, and he’s in the hospital undergoing surgery right now. No matter that his injuries were serious, he refused to go into surgery until he spoke to me and I assured him I would look after you, ma’am.” Worry joined the mixture of fear and dread churning inside her. She hoped Branch wasn’t hurt too badly. He had a wife and a daughter. She opened her mouth to ask about his condition, but then she snapped it shut. The man at her door had not said the code word.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

DEBRA WEBB is the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than 150 novels, including reader favorites the Faces of Evil, the Colby Agency and the Shades of Death series. She is the recipient of the prestigious Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense as well as numerous Reviewers Choice Awards. In 2012 Debra was honored as the first recipient of the esteemed L. A. Banks Warrior Woman Award for her courage, strength, and grace in the face of adversity. Recently Debra was awarded the distinguished Centennial Award for having achieved publication of her 100th novel. With this award Debra joined the ranks of a handful of authors like Nora Roberts and Carole Mortimer.

With more than four million books sold in numerous languages and countries, Debra’s love of storytelling goes back to her childhood when her mother bought her an old typewriter in a tag sale. Born in Alabama, Debra grew up on a farm and spent every available hour exploring the world around her and creating her stories. She wrote her first story at age nine and her first romance at thirteen. It wasn’t until she spent three years working for the Commanding General of the US Army in Berlin behind the Iron Curtain and a five-year stint in NASA’s Shuttle Program that she realized her true calling. A collision course between suspense and romance was set. Since then she has expanded her work into some of the darkest places the human psyche dares to go.

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