Review - How Much For A Broken Heart? by RJ Scott

August blames himself for the death of a man he was hired to protect. The man’s daughter was also kidnapped in the assassination and August has spent the last two years undercover to take apart the criminal cartel, get to the mystery man behind it, and get the young girl back. Ryder and his partner are tasked with extracting the little girl once August confirms her location in a compound deep in a forest. Just as the pair are about to make their move, Ryder realizes August may be in trouble. The cartel seems to have discovered he is a spy. The two carry out their plan, but after making sure his partner gets away safely with the girl, Ryder goes back to get August. It could end up being a suicide mission, but Ryder feels compelled to try.

This second book of the Shadow Team series pairs up a new set of men. A few characters from the first book appear as secondary characters in this volume, so it would be good if you read How Much For the Whole Night first, but it isn’t absolutely necessary. Ryder and August are thrown together in harrowing circumstances. They’ve never met before, but the two share enough similar military experience to quickly understand each other. The big question is, can a bond formed in the midst of a battle survive and grow once the fighting is over?

August is a very complicated character. You can probably sympathize with his feelings of guilt over the death of the man he was supposed to protect, as well as the loss of the man’s daughter to the person who ordered the assassination. However, it might be harder to wrap your head around what the man was willing to do to take revenge on the people responsible. August is a bit of an anti-hero - a good person doing bad things to get to the head of a criminal cartel.

Ryder is a little bit easier to empathize with. Yes, he’s a soldier, but he hasn’t had to walk on the dark side like August. He tries to be the light to guide August back from the darkness that swallowed him up. It’s a hard journey that is very realistically portrayed.

See BookBub for places to buy “How Much For A Broken Heart?”