INSIDE, by Brenda Novak, Book Review

Review For:
Inside, by Brenda Novak
ISBN: 9780778329930
Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)

It was a horrible experience that jump-started New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Brenda Novak's career-- she caught her daycare teacher drugging her children to get them to sleep. Deciding she needed to work from home, she penned her first novel, and has been a household sensation ever since. Other titles include: Trust Me, Watch Me, Stop Me, Dead Silence, Dead Giveaway, Dead Right, The Perfect Couple, The Perfect Murder, The Perfect Liar, and Mother, Please. She also heads an annual fundraiser for diabetes research every May. Brenda resides in Sacramento, California with her husband and five children.

This is book one in the Bulletproof trilogy, with In Seconds and In Close coming later this year. Though part of a trilogy, these are stand alone reads.

Virgil Skinner served fourteen years for a murder he didn't commit, but now, he's going back in. The California Department of Corrections needs someone to infiltrate a gang that's taking control of its most notorious supermax. He has no choice but to help. The gang he joined in order to survive prison the first time is threatening his only family-- his sister and her two kids. Authorities offer to protect them, so if he doesn't do it, they'll be dead. Chief Deputy Warden Peyton Adams is not happy about her superiors plans to bring Virgil in her prison. Though something has to be done about the gang, this reeks of failure. Failure that could kill the man she's suddenly having feelings for. A man who has already suffered enough.

Just when I thought Brenda Novak couldn't get any better, she does. This book breaks ground on a premise that is beyond unique. I wondered how she was going to pull this off in a romantic suspense, but she did, and made it plausible. The amount of detail and research it took to write a book about being "inside" must have been staggering. I'm left haunted and pained by prison life after reading this. The conflict was impenetrable, the romance hot, and the characters' stories heart-breaking. This isn't highly recommended, it's a must read!

Kelly Moran,
author of Summer's Road.