PROTECTING PIPER by Cynthia Eden-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date January 29, 2019

She was off limits.

Eric Wilde has always known that Piper Lane isn’t for him. She is his younger brother’s best friend…and probably more. But that hasn’t stopped Eric from wanting her. For longing for the one woman that he can’t have. Sure, he’s rich, successful—he’s built a security empire, and he’s got the world at his feet. Only he doesn’t have her.

He is the one man she needs the most.

Free-spirited Piper Lane has always considered Eric to be the enemy. He’s seemed to resent her, and the guy just flat-out makes her nervous. Every time she’s around him, she winds up doing something horribly embarrassing. But, this time…everything has changed. This time, he’s the one man she needs the most.

Something is stalking Piper.

A stranger has broken into Piper’s home twice, and she feels like someone is following her. Watching her every move. She needs a professional to help her—so enter Eric Wilde. He promises her protection, he promises to put his best investigators on her case, and he even moves her into his house. Suddenly, the guy who has always been the villain in her life…he’s now playing the role of hero.

Everything will change as the danger mounts.

And maybe Eric isn’t so bad, after all. The more time that Piper spends with him, the more she realizes that her feelings for Eric are far more complicated that she ever imagined. Desire explodes between them even as the danger deepens around her. Someone in the dark is targeting Piper, and he is determined that if he can’t possess her…then he will destroy her.

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REVIEW: PROTECTING PIPER is the first instalment in Cynthia Eden’s contemporary, adult, romantic suspense series focusing on the men and women who work for Wilde Securities. This is owner and security specialist Eric Wilde, and artist/gallery owner Piper Lane’s story line.

Told from several third person perspectives including Eric and Piper PROTECTING PIPER follows the enemies to lovers relationship between owner and security specialist Eric Wilde, and artist/gallery owner Piper Lane. Most of her life Piper Lane believed her best friend’s brother hated her guts. From the age of seventeen, Eric Wilde kept his distance from Piper Lane, a distance meant to quell the need and desire for his brother’s best friend. When Piper becomes the target of a psychopathic mind, Eric and his team at Wilde Securities, make it their responsibility to protect the woman Eric has loved most of his life. What ensues is the rebuilding friendship and growing romance between Eric and Piper, as Eric struggles to stay one step ahead of the person trying to destroy our heroine’s life.

Eric Wilde has been in love with his brother’s best friend Piper for as long as he can remember. Hoping to keep his distance, Eric continues to push Piper out of his life but in doing slowly builds a wall between everyone concerned. Piper has no idea why Eric has such a hate on towards her but that hasn’t stopped her attraction to her best friend’s brother. The deaths of several people connected to our heroine, and attacks against both her personal and business properties will send Piper into the arms of Eric Wilde, where the palpable sexual attraction finds our couple together, for good. The $ex scenes are seductive and impassioned, without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

We are introduced to Eric’s brother and Piper’s best friend, divorce attorney Ben Wilde; Wilde Securities VP and ex-SEAL Simon Forrest; security specialists Julia Slate and Rick Williams; Eric’s assistant Dennis; and tattoo artist Mark Rogue. Simon’s story line is next in Guarding Gwen.

PROTECTING PIPER is a story of family, friendship, obsession and love. The premise is intriguing and suspenseful; the romance is spirited and passionate; the characters are energetic and strong. My one regret is that the identity of the guilty party is easily deduced.

Copy supplied by Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy