Thursday, August 17, 2017

Out of the Shadows (The Tacket Secret)


Title: Out of the Shadows

Series: Tacket Secret (Book #1)


Year: 2017

Author: Emma Carrie

Summary: Haunted by a past she didn't choose. Desperate for a future she can redeem.

Three years ago, teen assassin Emily Brelin escaped the rogue general who trained her. She fled across the globe to Golden City, New York, where she met a professor who offered a home and a new start. The professor guarded Emily's secrets—but now the teen's murky past is about to catch up with her.

When the professor dies, the will names best friend Detective Victoria Tacket as the new guardian. Emily worries her secrets will be exposed and her location leaked. She plans to run away because the general will kill anyone to recapture her, and she won't risk the detective's life.

Scarred by loss. Driven to protect.

Detective Vick Tacket is shocked when she learns her best friend has died. She's even more stunned when she learns her friend had a hidden dependent and named Vick—a single woman with no maternal interest—as the girl's guardian. Convinced she'd be a terrible mother, Vick plans to decline guardianship, until the teen disappears.

Vick scours the streets of Golden City, searching for Emily—but what she discovers threatens both their lives.

Main Characters:
~ Emily Brelin
~ Vick Tacket

Review: This book, honestly, is not a tremendously long read. I finished the whole thing in an evening. But I warn you: it will leave you wanting more.

Emily Brelin is a teenage assassin looking for a new chance at life. She's had to live off the grid to hide from her old employer, a general of some violent and evil tendencies. Desperate to stay out of his employ, Emily's found refuge and a new name with a college professor. However, when that beloved professor suddenly dies of cancer, it's up to Emily's new guardian to keep her off the grid.

Which, Vick really isn't good at. AT ALL. Even if she's basically a world-class detective with an odd obsession for chai in Styrofoam cups. 

In some ways, I feel like the book blurbs offered for this series basically outlines the entire plot. But then again, it is a novella, rather short, and so you can't write a long blurb anyway without giving away most of the story. 

BUT this book is so perfectly titled. Seriously. 

Emily was a wonderful puzzle. I was never quite sure what she was going to do next, but she kept me on my toes. She has her secrets, her faults, but she's still a real person. I loved being able to follow the details of her mind -- her analysis of everything around her, her determining the next best move to make, her photographic memory. She's really a trained assassin, and you definitely get that picture. 

Honestly, there was nothing big that I disliked in the book. The action was very fast-paced, so as a reader, one is never bored. My only complaints would be the length (remedied, I realize, by getting the next 6 novellas in the series), and the quick, almost shallow, nature of the book. There was a connection between Vick and Emily, definitely, but I was sorry to see it not more developed. Vick, too, had a host of secrets that seemed like they'd eventually come clear throughout the novella, but they never did. Perhaps in later books. 

In conclusion, if you're into superhero-ish, sciencefiction-ish, suspense-ish fiction, this would be an excellent series to pick up. And happy day -- all 7 books, it seems, have already been released. You don't have to wait until next year to find out what happens. 

Advisory: Some violence, blood, and shooting. Characters discuss police cases, but nothing terribly graphic. 

*Please note I was given a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.*

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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