Book Title: Doubleback by Lissa Ford

Published: March 27, 2015

Synopsis (Goodreads):

After a tragic shooting left him wounded and in disgrace, all that remained of former deputy sheriff Jude Anderson’s life was a shattered femur, the standard disability package, and a host of issues. Jude seeks sanctuary in a remote upstate cabin and tries to get his life back on track.

Life has other plans when Jude finds a dead man draped across his front doorstep. The victim is the first hookup Jude’s had in, well, ever. Once Jude processes that shock he gets another when he learns that the homicide detective sent to investigate the murder is Rowan Muir, Jude’s ex. Their split was ugly, and Rowan isn’t the forgiving type.

Now Jude is drawn back into a world he left behind: murder investigations and fighting the undeniable attraction he has for Rowan. Rowan is still holding onto a substantial grudge. But both men need to figure out how to cope with being thrown together again, because it’s becoming increasingly clear that Jude is being targeted by a murderer – one who may have come from Jude’s past for revenge.

Warnings: if you don’t like man-on-man sexytimes, this isn’t the book for you. Everyone else: hot law enforcement officers, angst and hot make-up sex is on deck.

The disappointments and frustrations of the previous second-chance romance books that I read lead me to this book. I randomly found this in the MM GR group, and it has some good comments so I was like, why not? I was pretty sure that I would be disappointed again.

But you know how this goes… Doubleback turns out better than expected.

To be clear, my main gripe to the other stories that I’ve read is that instead of an increased tension, the couple tends to forgive each other almost right away and moves on to a hot makeup sex. That makes the reconciliation not rewarding because it feels like there are still so many things that they need to talk about, stuff that they have to discuss before restarting their relationship. And if they have already established their relationship early on in the story, what’s the point of going through pages of text? Just to affirm their love?

Doubleback is, in a way, interesting what’s with the murder mystery going on and the background of the main characters. But this book is not just about the crime or the chemistry, it is also about the personal issues that the main leads have within themselves and in their relationship.

I’m gonna be honest here, while I love solving the mystery, the biggest pull is still the second-chance romance. The chemistry between Rowan and Jude is palpable, sparks do fly when they’re both in the same scene. I always look forward to see them together. The romance is built up in a way that I look forward to their reconciliation and how the change in their relationship would affect the ongoing investigation. I’m in love with the tension, and I love how both the characters have these repressed feelings underneath all the tough persona they try to portray.

I love the romance and all. I just didn’t like the dramatic speeches in the climactic event. Like, come on, you are on the verge of dying, but you are still saying your spiel. It might make the scene more heartwrenching, but it’s not practical.

Like what’s mentioned above, Rowan and Jude already have a history prior to the main events of the story. Expect flashbacks which is, I think, to be expected to understand what went wrong between the two.

While it is an HFN, for now, their relationship is still a little rocky, but Doubleback works as a standalone for me. It ends in such a nice place. There are still a lot of issues between the two so that’s why there is still book 2 and 3 out there, but I heard many readers have qualms about the ending of book 3. There isn’t seem to be book 4 in sight. So I guess, I’ll just leave this series here and be contented with their ending.