The Complete Echo Series by C.R. Alam
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Echoing Hearts

Rae is a travel blogger who track her travels on her social media, and occasionally freelances for her former employer, a travel magazine. Doing one of her freelance articles is what brings her to a home in Georgia where she meets a man who seems surly and unhappy with her presence. She assumes he is the husband of the owner of the home, who doesn’t appear to be present. When she realizes that Dean is actually the owner of the home…and not his sister, who was the architect of the home, she is forced to spend a weekend mostly alone with him in order to finish her article. The two initially mix like oil and water, but manage to survive their weekend together, and then don’t see each other for several months after. When they connect again in New York City, where they are both living, sparks fly, until Dean becomes jealous of Rae’s relationship with her best friend, Brandon, and has to figure out how to fix things, if he even can. This book is a great opening to this series, with amazing characters that you want to see find their happily-ever-after. This book can be read as a stand-alone, but once you fall into this world, I doubt you will want to leave it!

His Forever Muse

First, let me say, while Calliope, or Callie as she’s most often called, is one of the strongest heroines I’ve read about, there are multiple conversations in this book that may be triggering for some people, as Callie has had the unfortunate experience of being in a relationship with an abusive, controlling, and manipulative person who is aided and abetted by his family along the way. While the book does NOT go into graphic detail or show most of the incidents, these conversations can still be triggering for some people, so please, PLEASE take your own mental health into consideration before reading this book. That being said, this book was well worth the read. Callie Chen-Bisset goes through a lot, both within the confines of a romantic relationship, but also with her own family before that, and comes out stronger on the other side. She is abused mentally and physically, and comes out wanting to help others who have also been victimized by not just the same person, but others as well. Her main goal in that is to protect her daughter from the father who only wants her to try and gain the upper hand on controlling Callie. In the middle of all of this, she rediscovers a lost love from her youth unexpectedly. Brandon Rossi, was friends with Callie and her brother Curtis when they were all kids and teenagers until Curtis interferes due to his own jealousy, causing Brandon and Callie to not speak for fifteen years. When they meet again while Brandon is on a trip to try and find himself, and Callie is working with a client for her art business, they instantly feel the old attraction return. Brandon travels next to Paris where Callie lives and they begin a relationship while also trying to fight for custody of Callie’s daughter Eleanor, to protect her from her abusive father who only wants her to try and get Callie back so he can control her once again.

Unexpected Entanglement

This is another excellent addition to this series, that can be read as a stand alone, but I doubt that you will want to once you get started. When Rowan and her brother Kieran lose their father and learn of a half-sister all at the same time, they are not sure what to think or do. Rowan and her father were working on restoring their family inn, located in Vinalhaven, Maine, to its former glory, when her dad unexpectedly has a heart attack and passes away, leaving Rowan with a final message to find her sister, Rae. As Rowan and Kieran try to finish the work they had already started on the inn, as well as the farm attached to the inn, they try to find Rae, as the three siblings have been given the property to run together, and they all three have to be a part of it. Rae, however, is unable or unwilling to just suddenly become a part of what is going on, so her friend Chris decides to go check things out for her first. Rae is a well known travel blogger and her husband is part of a popular band, and they are worried that the siblings only want to find them for their investment abilities. Chris Sullens shows up without warning, but does explain to the siblings why he is there. Chris’ family owns a large, well known hotel chain, and Chris, himself, owns and runs a smaller hotel chain of destination based hotels. Chris is able to help Rowan to formulate more ideas of how to help her family’s inn come back, while getting it back up and running for a family wedding. When the pair unexpectedly find themselves to be fake engaged, in an effort to ward of unwanted advances of a suitor for Rowan and unwanted criticism from town elders who think they have the right to run the island and view it as theirs to control, the pair discover that they are good together – in more ways than one.

Dangerous Rhythm

When Curtis sees a murder outside of a nightclub, and calls 911, he is drug into a world of gangs and freud’s he can’t possibly see coming. The victim and the assailant are parts of rival gangs, and when the murderer is killed in prison, Curtis suddenly finds himself on the wrong end of a grieving mother with a vendetta. Lina is a former service member who is now a partner in a private security firm, and has been tasked with keeping Curtis and his fellow Canis Major band mates safe from crazed fans and non-fans alike. This time, Lina is tasked with keeping Curtis safe from this new threat. While moving around and trying to stay safe, Lina and Curtis realize that there is something far more between them. This book can be read as a stand-alone, but once you start with this group of friends, I doubt you will want to leave them.

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