THE LONG WAY HOME (Corps Security 7) by Harper Sloan-a review

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date March 14, 2023

There’s a price to pay for a life with a greater purpose. The healing of time is a damn liar when you’re living a life as a dead man with no true home, and the silence couldn’t be more deafening. Counting the days, good and bad, I exist as the world keeps spinning. I can never look back. All I can do is hope I took enough out of that life to carry me forward on those dead legs. Everything that was meant to give the tragedy of my life meaning ended up holding me prisoner in this wreckage of my past.

Until now.

One look into her eyes and I’m completely disarmed. It’s only everything I thought I gave up. These walls I’ve built to protect and shroud me crumble more whenever she’s near. I’ve spent years waiting for a reason to breathe again, and now that I have her within reach, I’m not sure I can keep her. Is it possible to find both the missing piece of my soul and the remedy to my healing in one set of bright green eyes? Everything I thought I would never have is staring back at me saying … yes, I can.

••••••••

REVIEW:THE LONG WAY HOME is the seventh and final instalment in Harper Sloan’s contemporary, adult CORPS SECURITY erotic romantic suspense series focusing on a group of ex-Marines and the women they love. This is fifty-two-year old, Zachariah ‘Zeke’ Cooper aka Andrew ‘Drew’ Shaw, and café owner thirty year old café owner Olivia Kelley’s story line. THE LONG WAY HOME can be read as a stand alone but for back story and cohesion I recommend reading the series in order especially COOPER and LOCKE.

NOTE: If you have not read the previous story lines there may be spoilers in my review. The previous to last book in the series was released in 2014 but the author and her fans needed some closure for our story line hero.

Told from dual first person perspectives (Zeke and Olivia) THE LONG WAY HOME picks up more than twenty years after COOPER and LOCKE in which the Corps Security team have grieved the death of their friend and teammate Zachariah ‘Zeke’ Cooper who lost his life protecting the woman Maddox Locke loved but for all intents and purposes Zeke Cooper was dead, and a government ghost known as Andrew ‘Drew’ Shaw became the shadow that now follows our story line heroine. As a ghost, Andrew Shaw worked off books, dark ops for the government, taking down the baddest of the bad including all of the men who destroyed the lives of the people he loved. Along with his new teammates Evan, Hunt and Saint, the man now known as Drew keeps watch over our story line heroine in the wake of threats against her life and the life of her niece Riley. Olivia Kelley is raising her five year old niece after the murder of her sister by the man she once loved. Olivia is unaware of the threats against her life but her attraction to Drew is about to reveal more than she could have ever imagined. As Drew aka Zeke begins to fall for our story line heroine, his past comes ‘sparkling’ back, demanding the truth about what happened and why. What ensues is the building romance and relationship between Zeke and Olivia; the protection of Olivia and her niece Riley; the return from the dead for our story line hero; and the fall-out when the threats against Olivia and Riley come hard and fast.

Zeke Cooper ‘died’ the day he took a bullet for his friend’s girl Emmy but Zeke was reborn as Andrew Shaw, a man who now works undercover for the government doing the jobs no one else will do. Protecting Olivia and Riley has become paramount in Andrew Shaw’s life, and he finds himself falling for a woman who is about to relive the death of Zachariah ‘Zeke’ Cooper. Olivia Kelley lost everything the day her sister was murdered but found solace in the raising of her niece Riley. Olivia has spent most of her life alone but for the loss of her sister; meeting Andrew Shaw gave Olivia pause when her heart wanted something Drew may not be able to give.

The relationship between Olivia and Zeke aka Drew begins when Drew and his team frequent the café where Olivia works. Drew as Olivia knows him, is the silent and brooding ‘giant’ of a man, a giant that Olivia’s niece Riley comes to call her own. Zeke knows that to get involved with Olivia could threaten his career but when Zeke’s past comes calling, our hero needs Olivia to be his support and soul. The $ex scenes are intimate, erotic and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.

There is a large ensemble cast of colorful, energetic and familiar secondary and supporting characters most of whom we have met in the original Corps Security series including Sway and Davey, Axel and Izzy, Greg and Melissa, Asher , Beck and Dee, Chelcie and Zach, Emmy and Locke. We are introduced to Zeke aka Drew’s new teammates: Evan, Saint and Hunt, as well as Olivia’s niece Riley, and co-worker Ella. I am hoping the author has plans for the next generation as I had mentioned in my review of LOCKE.

THE LONG WAY HOME is a story of family and relationships, secrets and lies, betrayal and acceptance, forgiveness and love. The premise is heart breaking and emotional; the romance is seductive and provocative; the characters are energetic, dynamic and desperate. I have missed these characters-the camaraderie, the friendships, the love and the lives.

Haven’t started the series? Books 1-6 are currently available in a boxset for only $9.99 at->  Amazon US only

Reading Order and purchase links-click on highlighted title
Axel
Cage
Beck
Uncaged
Cooper
Locke

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Reviewed by Sandy

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Harper lives in small town Georgia just a short drive from her hometown of Peachtree City. She (and her 3 daughters) enjoy ruling the house they dubbed ‘Estrogen Ocean’, much to her husbands chagrin. Harper has a borderline unhealthy obsession with books; you can almost ALWAYS find her with her eReader attached. She enjoys bad reality TV and cheesy romantic flicks. Her favorite kind of hero–the super alpha kind!

Harper started using writing as a way to unwind when the house went to sleep at night; and with a house full of crazy it was the perfect way to just relax. It didn’t take long before a head full of very demanding alphas would stop at nothing to have their story told.