Deep is the debut police romance novel written by author L.A. Power, who contacted me on social media to review her book.
At the beginning of the book we meet Matthew and Emma, both are single and young and are set up by their friends on a blind date. After a whirlwind romance the couple end up living together in Emma’s parents house. Meanwhile Emma has long had an ambition to work for the police so the story follows her training through police academy and being assigned as a uniformed police officer.
However she enters the police at a turbulent time, when corruption is rife and management are seeking out whistle-blowers to stop corrupt police officers. When a position opens on the drug unit however and Emma meets the handsome officer Ryan, will she turn a blind eye or face being destroyed, as her heart and her duty begin to pull her in different directions…
Now before I go into my thoughts, this is one of the first police romance novels that I have read so deciding what score to give this book has been quite tricky as I often find reading previous books in the genre help me to benchmark my reviews by saying whether I think this book is better or worse, however my thoughts are below.
For a romance novel the book is very fast paced and has a lot of events take place and Power does a great job of keeping the pace up, whilst also making Emma’s journey through the novel from trainee to rookie cop to detective on the drugs unit feel organic and like she has worked her way up.
The three main characters in the novels love triangle – Matthew, Emma and Ryan are also all well-developed, interesting yet flawed. Also, when the love triangle develops, I did feel sorry for Matthew who is presented as a really loving and loyal character. However, his trust is misplaced when he is being betrayed by the woman who is supposed to love him and he seems like he would be the perfect boyfriend for many women reading the book.
I would say the early chapters do move along the relationship very rapidly so the plot can focus on Emma and perhaps if a bit more time was spent on the relationship at the beginning it would make the betrayal more impactful for some readers but as it is quite a pacy read overall the relationship is still developed. Also you could say with it being such a whirlwind romance whether it could’ve gone the distance.
The weakest part of the novel is actually the thriller and corruption aspects as unfortunately these parts are predictable and you can see it coming very early on. However Power does take the book in a slightly different direction towards the end and leaves the question open on the consequences of the corruption. Furthermore, knowing there is going to be a sequel this does leave some questions unanswered for the second novel.
There are also a few grammatical and typing errors within the book unfortunately, although they aren’t bad enough for you to not understand what was going on but this might put some people off.
Update 02/03/2022: As mentioned at the beginning of the review, I was contacted by the author to review a copy and I’ve been informed that the book has been updated with spelling and grammar corrected.
Overall it is an enjoyable read but I would recommend it more for fans of romance novels over thrillers. The book can be purchased on Amazon here and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below.