Format: Kindle, 368 pages
Release Date: February 28, 2023
Publisher: S.M. Reeve
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Thriller / Suspense
Avenger of Blood is the first installment in author S.M. Reeve's Anna Croix series. Anna is finishing up her rotation heading home to visit her parents. She's got everything going for her. She's got a gorgeous fiance, and her family is looking forward to a fun weekend, especially the massive diamond engagement ring Cole recently gave her when he proposed. She's so excited to visit her Mom, Dad, and brother Eric that she's devastated to discover that her entire family has been murdered.
When the police find her, she's near catatonic and admitted to a mental health facility by her family friend Wesley Harrison. After a few months there, Anna tires of her drugged stupor, and decides to take matters into her own hands because the police are getting nowhere, and the only thing that matters to her now is hunting down everyone responsible and seeking revenge. Once she actually finds those responsible, she has to decide their fate. Can she commit murder? Turns out she can indeed. Her new issue is how to stop committing murder.
Over the next 2 years, Anna becomes proficient in fire arms, sets up her ninja style obstacle course from scratch on her 150 acres in deliverance country, gets instruction in close contact fighting, fixes up her off-grid ramshackle barn to make it into a comfortable living space, collates information about the potential killers of her family, all on her own with no outside help in the 2 years since the murders took place. Along the way she picks up a side kick, Spike, who may not be as clueless as she thinks he is. If you go to the author's website you will get the free short story of Spike's Point of View.
At the end of this book there are enough questions waiting to be answered in the next books, such as what is the story with Cole, Anna's fiancé at the time of the murders, what is the story with Aiden, the detective who wants to date her even if he thinks she is somehow involved, how will Anna and Spike's relationship change, what makes Spike tick OR has this whole book been just a hallucination inside Anna's head while she is in the facility for her mental break down.
*Thoughts* It is important to note that Anna has a medical degree and uses it to send an ultimate message in a truly shocking and macabre way to her family’s murderer, but does she go too far? The reader understands Anna’s intense need for revenge however; she becomes entirely brutal and sadistic. It’s graphic, chilling, and disturbing all at the same time. This was literally sold as a thriller tale of vigilante justice, questioning revenge vs redemption, vengeance vs vindication, and choice vs consequences.
Can someone who goes down a road of bloodshed have the capability of coming back from the edge of being a sociopathic serial? In the years that I have been reviewing, one of the things that I have tried not to complain about is editing errors as they do happen. Unfortunately, I could have dropped this rating down to 2 1/2 Gizmos because there are points where Anna suddenly becomes a woman named Jules, but this doesn't make any sense to the reader because we all know that she is Anna, and so do certain villains, as well as the above named Aiden who knew her when she was suffering from losing her family.
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