~REVIEW~ Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3) by Karina Halle

Title: Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3)
Author: Karine Halle
Genre: Contemporary Romance, Suspense
PURCHASE LINKS: AMAZON ~ B&N


Synopsis

With more lives at stake and games in motion, Ellie, Camden and Javier form an uneasy alliance that will take them from the treacherous streets of inner-city Mexico to the wilds of the Honduran jungles in order to find their freedom. But with liberty just on the horizon, the cost might come at their own redemption.

~MY REVIEW~

“My real nature, my real self, wanted that person to believe in me, to see the good, ignore the bad, and make me feel like I had a future.”

As we start off Bold Tricks we are in the midst of the storm that was unleashed in Shooting Scars. Javier, Ellie and Camden are all on the run from Travis's henchmen. But Ellie and Camden need to save Gus and Javier needs to keep his sister safe.

In the conclusion to this thrilling series Ellie and Camden are finally together. But all is not well between them. Ellie was weak and Camden cannot forgive her for succumbing to Javier's mind games. So throughout their mission both learn to find their way back to each other, all the while fighting off the evil that surrounds them. 

“When I saw you I fell in love,” he said to me as I lay back against the bed and he crawled on top of me on all fours. “And you smiled because you knew.”

Ellie loves Camden and there is nothing that stops her from showing him how much. She has grown throughout the series and she finally learns to let go of her past. But with Gus and her mother in the hands of Travis she knows her only chance to get to them is with the help of Javier. So, while she is put through hell in this last installment, she shows us just how fierce Ellie Watt can be. And gets the awakening of a lifetime when she realizes that its time for her to fight for herself and for her future.

“That man would kill for me. He would die for me. And he would fuck me to death if I asked him.
I was tempted. What a way to go.”

Then there is our darling Camden. *sigh* If you read Shooting Scars and thought "damn this man is a badass" then you are in for quite the ride. His fierce protectiveness for those he loves is what empowers him to be the man he becomes throughout Bold Tricks. A man that has everything to lose but so much more to gain. He would do anything to keep Ellie, Gus and Ben safe. Even kill without a second thought. He isn't the sweet innocent man we meet in Sins & Needles. He is a man scorned by love and hardened by "war". But what never wavers his is unfailing belief in Ellie and her goodness.

“Ellie, he doesn’t have a very big heart.” He gave me a pointed look. “But I’m sure in his fucked-up mind, he was being noble. I’m at least grateful for that.”

Which leads us to Javier. In every story comes a Villain. My goodness what can I say about this man that hasn't been said before? Javier does his own growing in this series...not in a good way. He grows from little time VILLAIN to a big time MONSTER. He takes everything you liked about him and smashes it up in little bitty pieces. He is a man on a mission and he does not take any prisoners. What Bold Tricks did that no other book in this series did was make me understand where he is coming from. A little. His love for Ellie was so great and so rich that he wanted to hold onto that. But in the end, to him, POWER is so much greater than LOVE.


This is the last chapter in this threesome's adventure. Lives are lost, loved ones are betrayed, traps are set, new allies are made and LOVE will be the one thing that leads them through this storm. I will dearly miss this series and its characters. So much so that at the end I felt empty knowing that their journey had ended. :-(


I do look forward to reading more from Karina Halle and will continue to recommend this series to those who haven't had the luck to read it.


Buckle up for the last adventure with Jose and the gang! :)

HAPPY READING!

~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~

Karina is represented by Scott Waxman of the Waxman Leavell Literary Agency

The daughter of a Norwegian Viking and a Finnish Moomin, Karina Halle grew up in Vancouver, Canada with trolls and eternal darkness on the brain. This soon turned into a love of all things that go bump in the night and a rather sadistic appreciation for freaking people out. Like many of the flawed characters she writes, Karina never knew where to find herself and has dabbled in acting, make-up artistry, film production, screenwriting, photography, travel writing and music journalism. She eventually found herself in the pages of the very novels she wrote (if only she had looked there to begin with).

Karina holds a screenwriting degree from Vancouver Film School and a Bachelor of Journalism from TRU. Her travel writing, music reviews/interviews and photography have appeared in publications such as Consequence of Sound, Mxdwn and GoNomad Travel Guides. She currently lives on an island on the coast of British Columbia where she's preparing for the zombie apocalypse with her fiance and rescue pup. 

Connect with Karina: Goodreads ~ Facebook ~ Twitter ~ Website