DEACON (Unfinished Hero #4) by KRISTEN ASHLEY

Even after so many books, the excitement of seeing a KA story landing on our Kindles never diminishes and Deacon’s arrival was no exception.  So, what did we think?  In some ways we were feeling completely head over heels in love with Deacon’s story yet in others, a little unfulfilled.

**What we loved:  First up Deacon. Just you wait until you meet Deacon. Wow! He really is something else. This man was such an enigma.  He entered the story under a shroud of mystery ensuring we were desperate to know more about this quiet unassuming force and what we did uncover was a man with a broken past, who had escaped hurt so horrendous it was easy to see how this man had lost his way.

“Anything. You want it, I got it in me to give it to you, you got anything from me.”

His pain wrecked us and we mean w.r.e.c.k.e.d  us. There was one scene in particular that was gut wrenchingly difficult to read and had us putting aside our Kindles and pausing for a moment to take it all in. We both sobbed for this man and his pain.

“You got all of me, woman. You just took the last I had to give.”

Cassidy was a sweetheart. You couldn’t help but love this good natured, easy going yet tenacious beautiful young lady. In true KA style Cassie was a beautiful heroine who stole our hearts.

The story, whilst not delivering on what we expected kept us completely engrossed and all the KA goodness that we love in her stories shone through in Deacon. Our hearts were melted.

**What didn’t work for us: The lack of drama and action we’ve come to associate with the early books in this series was non-existent, though the emotional pull of the story did negate the lack of drama somewhat.

We didn’t experience the anti-hero side of Deacon at all and we desperately needed to. Oh there was no doubt Deacon was an alpha, sexy badass but anti-hero? Not so much and being that is what the series represents, the lack of it was a little disappointing.  We needed to be shown, not told the reasons why Deacon was considered an ‘unfinished hero’ and this wasn’t the case.

The epilogue. We can’t believe we’re about to say this but Deacon’s epilogue left us wanting and was one of our least favourite KA epilogues to date and this story really did need a kick arse epi.

**Would we recommend Deacon? Absolutely! No question. No hesitation. As KA fans we devoured this book. It had all the characteristic trademarks we love about this authors work. Gorgeous, alpha male lead with a heart of gold. Warm, relatable heroine who stole our hearts. An emotional, funny, moving and steamy story that kept us religiously turning every page.

“You’re vulnerability. My vulnerability. I have no vulnerabilities.”

Despite our misgivings about the story not delivering on what the foundation of these books were built on, this was still an completely enjoyable KA read. Prepare to fall in love with Deacon and prepare to read one of the most heartbreaking scenes you’ve read in a long time. We promise you….this man will enter your soul. We swear we’ll never tire of reading this ladies stories!

**Reviewed off an ARC copy kindly provided by the author**