Shadowed Agenda: An Enemies to Lovers Action-Packed Romantic Suspense Thriller by Mavery Ellscott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shadowed Agenda is a part of the Shadow Defense Security Series. Regan Christenson and Pavlo Barislov are like oil and water. In other words, they don’t mix. The two are forced together on a book tour…they even write books in two completely different genres. They avoid one another and only interact when they need to, and usually when they do, it’s full of snark. All that changes when Regan’s life is threatened when she refuses to do a private book signing for a woman who just may well be the next First Lady. The sole person who can protect her is Pavlo. As the two spend more time together, they discover their first opinions of one another were all wrong, and that snark may have been hiding a desire for the another.

I will be completely honest. I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this book because it involved politics, and I get enough of that every day on the news. However, I quickly changed my mind as that didn’t dominate the book! Yes, it was a part of the plot that drove the story, but it didn’t take away anything from the actual book itself. The pacing was spot-on, and the twists and turns kept me guessing. Just when I thought I knew who the bad guy was, Ellscott would flip the script on me, and I was second-guessing myself. I couldn’t stop flipping the pages to see what the final outcome would be.

I loved Regan and Pavlo. They were complex characters, and with each chapter told in their own POVs, another layer of who they were was revealed. Both of them had some serious trust issues. They had each loved someone with everything they had to have their hearts and their trust in love destroyed. Regan and Pavlo also dealt with that differently. Regan wouldn’t even consider a relationship much less a one-night stand, and one-night stands were all that Pavlo could offer a woman. Each of them was fiercely independent and determined. Pavlo was dedicated to his job with Shadow Defense, and Regan was dedicated to her daughter, Emmeline.

The secondary characters also added a layer to the story. Characters were not always who I thought they were. In fact, that was part of the guessing game for me as well. Because of my uncertainty about their agenda, the epilogue was such a treat for me. It was one of my favorite parts of the book.

It’s been quite a while since I have read romantic suspense, and Mavery Ellscott reminded me why I love this genre. She did a fantastic job of combining mystery, intrigue, and romance. She is a new author for me, and I’m so glad I got the chance to discover how talented she is. I will be reading more from her in the future!!!

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