Thank you NetGallery and author Rachel Grant for giving me a free copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. This book was such a roller coaster ride of adventure, romance, and mystery. The reader can easily tell the author had a great time writing this story. Also it is apparent the author did her research. The characters were well developed, both on the professional and personal sides. The pacing of the story was well done. Even when the characters were explaining the various technical jargon, I felt the information added to the story rather than just taking up pages of the book. Overall, I really enjoyed the ride and am looking forward to the next book in this amazing series.

It’s always great to read a thriller. This story kept me on the edge of my seat. I also loved how the characters interacted with one another. I felt it was a good suspenseful read.

In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t wise to follow one of my favorite Rachel Grant books (Into the Storm) with another Rachel Grant book…in an entirely separate series.

Dangerous Ground starts out a little slow. Mysteries about what happened in the hero and heroine’s pasts are hinted at (which is NOT my favorite thing), and the story had a meandering feeling to it - which is also not usual for this author.

Archeologist Fiona Carver is a Navy contractor assigned to map and record the findings of an ancient village on a remote Alaskan island. Dean Slater, a wildlife photographer, has bluffed his way onto the crew going to the remote Alaskan island in an attempt to find his twin brother who went missing five weeks ago.

But it doesn’t take long after everyone arrives on the island for Fiona and Dean to realize things aren’t as they seem, and what follows is several days of battling the unforgiving nature and terrain of Alaska and the peril of people who want them dead.

Once the storyline picked up, things moved at a breathtaking pace. Rachel Grant does a fantastic job building the world of where the story is taking place (I swear I could see the places where Fiona and Dean were traveling!), but still keeping the plot moving. I give the suspense part of this book five out of five stars!

But Rachel Grant is one of my favorite romantic suspense authors. I read her because she does a fantastic job of balancing the romance AND the suspense, giving us equal parts of both.

Until this one.

Fiona has a firm “no flings or fraternizing with coworkers” rule based on past experience and that pesky mysterious history of hers. Dean is firmly and unbudgingly in the “only flings” category based on his own history. There’s lots of longing and plenty of chemistry, and I appreciate a story where neither hero or heroine compromises their convictions. But the ending was as satisfying as a sugar-free dessert.

I won’t go into much more than that, but let’s just say the romance part of this book gets one out of five stars.

The good thing is that there's a book two, I already have it queued up, and I have high hopes that things will improve in the romance department for Fiona and Dean!

* thank you to NetGalley and Montlake for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Fiona returns to finish a job while being joined by Dean who is searching for his missing brother. Danger and intrigue surrounds them as they work to find answers.
Thanks to publisher and Netgalley for the tale. Opinions are entirely my own.

It's clear the author loves her subject and the writing within itself is excellent - very detailed re the Archaelogy and Fiona's work. Therein lies my problem - it's too much for me and is zoning me out, plus there's a lot of internal narration. I liked the action scenes, as something actually happened, in this slow burn - should I say, romance? As well as being gifted the ARC by NetGalley and the publisher (my thanks), I also borrowed the book on kindle unlimited after publication and have been listening to the included audio which bumped up my rating. The narrators are doing an excellent job and actually kept me listening for longer, than if I'd have been reading only. There's a sequel and the continuation of the relationship I assume, because it isn't resolved in this book, so be prepared for that. Hopefully I'll like the sequel more.

Rachel Grant is amazing at weaving together mystery, suspense, and romance in her books. I've been a fan for a long time, but unfortunately Dangerous Ground just didn't do it for me. The main characters were great, they had real chemistry and I could easily sense the attraction between them. Normally the level of detail this author brings to her stories is appreciated, but this one took it overboard for me. The amount of jargon, process explanations, and packing descriptions simply took me out of the story. The bad guy mystery was weak and convoluted. Overall, I wanted so much to like the book, but was disappointed.

Slow burn - Check
Suspense - Check
New favourite author? - Check

I went in keeping my expectations low because I'd been burned a few times with romantic suspense that was either all suspense and no romance which ain't my thing.

5 Stars damn that cliffhanger

This was such a good book however it ended in a cliffhanger which I really dislike. However this was a classic Rachel grant book she hits all the good suspense notes and keeps you asking for more. I will continue to read this series to find out how it ends but I may very well wait until the series is complete.

The cardinal sin of a cliffhanger! Now I need the next book in the series immediately. Rachel Grant’s books never disappoint. She’s great at writing mysteries and tension the clip right along.

When wildlife photographer, Dean Slater can't get in contact with his brother, Dylan, a volcanologist, he knows something isn't right. As close as brothers can be, it isn't normal for either to not inform the other of their plans. Therefore, he hatches a plan to look for his missing sibling in the last place he was known to be… The Aleutian Islands.

Intrigue and danger set against the dramatic, volcanic landscape of the Islands of the northern Pacific Ocean, Ms. Grant's descriptions of the backdrop brought this bleak wilderness to life. Additionally, the history of the indigenous Unangan, known by non-natives as the Aleut, and why their territory is of strategic importance is an unexpected inclusion leaving me feeling both enlightened for the informative details and entertained by the fast-paced, adventurous narrative.

The romance aspect is a slow burn, as Dean and Fiona fight their attraction to each other with each having a valid reason for not getting involved with the other. I enjoyed the build-up and also the ending which is to keep the reader guessing on what happens next. Yes, there is another novel to look forward to but this isn’t a cliffhanger. For the time being, a happy for now is fitting for the protagonists and allows the imagination of the reader to run wild as to what will come next.

Some time has passed since I’ve read a romantic suspense novel and Dangerous Ground has reawakened my thirst for the genre and I can't wait to read the next installment in the Fiona Carver series; Crash Site.

***arc generously received courtesy of Montlake Romance via NetGalley***

Rachel Grant never fails to hit all the feels in her romantic suspense novels, and her newest book is a step in a slightly new direction. All of the hallmarks of Grant’s canon are present: perilous journeys, intelligent characters, shocking science, and a breakneck pace.

Read the full review at All About Romance: https://allaboutromance.com/the-best-of-2021-dollys-list/

A 4 star story with a 1 star ending. I loathe the trend in having a cliffhanger ending to build readership for a series. It makes me so angry that I very seldom pick up the next book. I got this way from having a favorite series left with a cliffhanger ending and then the author died, so it will never be resolved.

So- although I normally love a Rachel Grant story, I won’t read more of this series until it is finished.

Dangerous Ground was an amazing start to a new suspense series following an archaeologist who finds herself at the center of a deadly plot.

In the remote Aleutian Islands archaeologist Fiona Carver has unfinished business after an emergency evacuation cut her last expedition short. With the remains of the prehistoric village she found left uncovered in the elements for four weeks, Fiona isn't sure what she'll find when she gets back to the island. Wildlife photographer Dean Slater has bluffed his way onto Fiona's team to find his missing brother Dylan who has not been seen since the evacuation from the Aleutian Islands four weeks ago. Convinced something is wrong, Dean gets onto the island and convinces Fiona to help him look for his missing brother. But they aren't the only ones on the hunt and before long, someone is hunting them.

Fiona was an excellent main character. She's intelligent, great at her job, and is willing to push her limits to do the right thing. I liked that she didn't take things as face value and questioned suspicious behavior from those around her. When we first meet Dean, he's pretending to be someone else, so his personality is quite different and I didn't love that version of him. As the book goes on and he stops pretending to be someone else, his real personality begins to come through which is when I began to like his character. I really liked the chemistry between him and Fiona and it's clear they could have a great relationship were it not for some issues on Dean's end due to his past. Dean is desperate to find his brother and at times that causes him to make rash decisions. I will say one thing I didn't like was how insistent Dean was that Fiona was in a relationship with Dylan even after she told him that wasn't true. (view spoiler)

The search for Dylan actually made for quite an interesting plot. Dean is led to believe by Dylan's employer that Dylan went off the grid to find himself after leaving the project. Fiona, and the others on the expedition, are told that Dylan sexually assaulted their boss and was fired. It's clear that no one is telling the truth and that something more is going on. I was actually surprised by the direction the plot went and I didn't expect what was ultimately behind Dylan's disappearance. The pacing in this book is great as once Dean and Fiona start being chased, there isn't a lot of down time. The ending was fantastic and had the perfect amount of action.

Overall Dangerous Ground was a great start to the series and I'm looking forward to reading Crash Site when it releases early next year.

I really love Rachel Grant as an author and was so excited for an opportunity to check out this book. I loved it . Now it does end on a cliffhanger but its part of series so wasn't surprised by that. It is a great boom filled with adventure. Fiona is an Archeologist. Her first time at the Aleutian Islands was cut short and now she's back to finish the job she's started. Time is not on her side as she tried to document the remains of a village and find missing Volcanologist Dylan Slater.

Lying his way onto Fiona's team with fake credentials he is really a wildlife photographer searching for his missing brother. He needs Fiona's help to find his brother she knows the terrain better than anyone.

When they start out on their mission it ends up being more than just a recovery to find his brother its a fight for their lives. They are being hunted.

This was a great kick read. I loved this book and reccomend it. I cannot wait for the next book in the series.

Grant is known for her detailed narratives and this is no exception. I was fascinated by the history of the Aleutian Islands and the native populations. I definitely want to see more of Fiona and Dean. You can’t go wrong with this one.

Fiona Carver is a navy archeologist researching a new base site on Chiksook Island,  one of the Aleutian islands. After discovering a historic village, she was forced to flee the island due to weather conditions and not allowed to return for five weeks.  Now she's finally returning along with a few of her previous team and some new. She is immediately attracted to the new ornithologist,  Bill, with his "Newman blue" eyes,  but there's just something about him that seems off. He doesn't know some of the basic codes of his profession,  he carries expensive camera equipment but doesn't seem that interested in photographing local birds,  and he's way too interested in the gossip surrounding a former coworker who was fired.
Dean Slater is searching for his missing twin brother,  Dylan, who was supposedly fired but never returned home.  Forced to pose as an ornithologist as the only way onto the island, he tries to get information from Fiona, one of the last people to see him,  and supposedly Dylan's girlfriend.  But she insists that they were only friends.  Weird things start to happen on the island,  forcing Fiona and Dean to flee for their lives. Will they ever find Dylan,  or all die trying?
This is a great start to a new series! Action- packed, but with a lot of interesting detail about archeology and geology too.  The main characters were interesting,  both with tragic pasts that they fight to get over. I love Fiona and Dean,  but I also hope Dylan plays a big part in the rest of the series and gets his own happy ending.
I received an advance reader copy of this book through NetGalley.  This review is given voluntarily

I like to get into those that have a time table. The pace takes you with it quickly. Fiona is on a time table and also must find a missing person. Dean who fibs to get on the team to help find that brother. This will also turn into something more and deadly dangerous. This is the kind to sit up for. Turn the pages to see if he is found and if they come out alive.

Given the number of disappointing romantic suspense reads I’ve experienced lately, it’s no understatement to say that I’ve been very eagerly awaiting the next book from Rachel Grant, someone I know I can rely on to deliver a fast-paced and tightly-plotted story of mystery and suspense alongside a well-developed steamy romance. Dangerous Ground is a little bit of a departure for her however, in that it’s the first of a series that will feature the same central couple, so I want to make it clear that there’s no HEA –or even HFN – in this book, although I’m sure our hero and heroine will get there eventually. Actually, I’m pleased to see an author of m/f romantic suspense taking this approach; most of the really good RS I’ve read lately has been m/m in series in which each book features a self-contained suspense plot while the character and relationship development is ongoing. So I was in no way put off by the lack of a concrete ending for the protagonists in Dangerous Ground and have high hopes for the further progression of their relationship in subsequent books.

Another reason I always look forward to Ms. Grant’s books is the way she so skilfully draws on her background in history and archaeology to produce stories that are incredibly well-researched and informative about the various aspects of conservation/preservation/exploration that she includes in them, and this is no exception. Civilian naval archaeologist Fiona Carver is part of the team assigned to produce an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) of the new submarine base the US Navy wants to build in the Aleutian Islands off the coast of Alaska. Five weeks before the story begins, Fiona had made a very significant discovery – that of a prehistoric village on Chiksook Island – but before she was able to do any further excavation, an emergency evacuation was ordered. Expecting to be back in a few days, she took as many precautions as she feasibly could with the equipment she had available at the time, but now, five weeks later, she fears the site may have been destroyed. Dangerous Ground opens as she is returning to Chiksook along with a few members of the original team, and a couple of newcomers she hasn’t met before, one of whom is ornithologist Bill Lowell. Objectively, Fiona can see Bill is gorgeous (she mentally nicknames him “Hot Bird Man”) – but she can also see he’s one of those men who is well aware he’s attractive, and shuts down his attempts at flirting while trying her best to remain friendly. She doesn’t do field flings (or any type of fling, really) and isn’t about to change her stance on that, no matter how good-looking or charming the guy is.

Wildlife photographer Dean Slater’s twin brother Dylan, a volcanologist, was one of Fiona’s team-mates on the previous expedition, but Dean hasn’t seen him since his supposed return from Chiksook Island. The last email Dean received from him stated that he was going off the grid for a few months, but that email came from a generic work email address rather than Dylan’s personal account and Dean is certain Dylan wouldn’t just go off like that without at least talking to him beforehand or leaving him some contact details. And when he gets stonewalled by both the Navy and their contracted engineering company, he becomes increasingly suspicious. Worried for his brother’s safety, Dean ‘borrows’ the name of an ornithologist he’d worked for years ago and blags his way onto the team. It’s risky – if he’s found out he could face going to prison – but there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his brother.

The person Dean is most interested in meeting is Fiona Carver. Dylan’s emails had been full of her and he’d said she was his girlfriend, so surely she must know something? Yet she shows no sign of knowing anything, and Dean dislikes what he interprets as a total lack of concern for her boyfriend. Yet despite that – and the fact that she’s “Dylan’s girl” – he can’t help being drawn to her. She’s beautiful, sure, but there’s more to it than that; there’s a passion for her work, a competence and assurance and fierce intelligence that impress and captivate him.

The first quarter or so of the book is fairly slow going as we’re introduced to the two leads and the author starts to lay out some of the clues that may – or may not – relate to Dylan’s disappearance. Fiona does have some suspicions about what may have happened to him, although she’s wary of making unfounded accusations and doesn’t at first realise his personal safety is at stake. There are things about Bill that don’t add up, an uncomfortable feeling about a last-minute replacement on the team, and all this, together with her worries over the fact that she may have unintentionally contributed to the destruction of a hugely important ancient site, contributes to a growing sense of unease she just can’t shake off. The author does a fabulous job of creating and gradually building an atmosphere full of apprehension and suspicion as Fiona starts to wonder who she can trust. Then things take a sudden and dangerous turn for the worse, and Fiona and Dean find themselves stranded together with no way off the island and no way to survive the harsh conditions unless they can find a way to work together. But overcoming their mutual mistrust is the last of their worries when they realise that there may be someone else on the island – someone who wants to make sure they never leave it.

Dangerous Ground is a strong start to this new series, boasting a unique setting, smart and interesting characters and fascinating background detail. Fiona is a terrific heroine; she’s smart, capable and courageous, and I very much liked that she’s not afraid to own up when she’s scared and then pushes herself through it. Dean is harder to like to start with – he’s pushy and a bit smarmy when he’s pretending to be Bill, although I kind of gave him a pass because the author makes it so very clear just how much he loves Dylan – who is his only family. He’s basically a decent guy forced to take desperate measures although he does do and say some dumb things, especially in his persistence in believing that Fiona and Dylan are an item when she repeatedly tells him otherwise. And while I sort of understood the reasons for his playboy lifestyle and aversion to relationships, his ‘love kicked me in the guts and I want nothing more to do with it’ stance is rather stereotypical and it got old fast.

I always come away from a Rachel Grant book having learned something new, but there’s a bit of information overload in this one and I have to admit that some of the technical detail and overly obvious ‘teaching moments’ took me out of the story a few times.

Dangerous Ground is an intriguing, suspenseful mystery with an intricate, well-woven plot, well-written action sequences and an engaging heroine. The romance is clearly going to be a slow burn and I can’t deny that the ending is somewhat abrupt, but I enjoyed it despite my criticisms, and I’ll definitely be back for book two, Crash Site, when it’s released early in 2022.

Grade - B / 4 stars

I was very much intrigued by the setting of this book, in the remote Aleutian Islands, where Fiona Carver is an archaeologist investigating a potentially unique indigenous site before the US Navy builds a new submarine base. The unforgiving landscape, potentially deadly even in the middle of summer, plays a big part in the story.

I do, however, have two significant issues with the book. First is that, while it is the first part of a series, it ends on a relationship cliffhanger. While I wouldn’t necessarily expect an HEA in the first installment of a romantic suspense series based on a single protagonist, a cliffhanger is just going to annoy readers unnecessarily. Frankly there was way too much will-they won’t-they going on anyway, and considering the explicit dirty talk earlier in the book, the fact the couple didn’t actually do the deed just felt like a bait-and-switch let down.

The second issue I have - and this is a bigger one - is that for a series where Fiona is supposedly the protagonist, this book was about Dean. Dean’s brother, Dean’s problems, Dean’s romantic interest in Fiona. I didn’t count scenes, but it certainly felt like well over half the book was from his point of view. Certainly it was his choices which drove most of the story’s action, relegating Fiona to the role of observer and assistant.

There are things here I really like, such as the respect shown for the indigenous people whose land the action is occurring on. Fiona is a great character, with her no-nonsense attitude and refusal to have specific roles assigned to her just because of her gender. Dean, while he thinks he’s enlightened, falls down here a few times - but that’s the flaw of writing a modern-day playboy, because their lack of respect for women is a fundamental part of their character, and writing one as the hero means you almost always end up falling into the Not Like Other Girls trope with the heroine.

I don’t think this is a bad story, but I think billing it as ‘Fiona Carver Book 1’ does it no favours, and as previously noted, I’m not at all keen on the romance cliffhanger ending. Overall, I’ll give it three stars; I may pick up book 2 if it crosses my radar but probably won’t go out of my way to look for it.

Loved Dangerous Ground. The story of a devoted brother going undercover on a mission to find his missing sibling was an interesting read on its own, but what sets this book apart and makes it fascinating is the scientific mission, not your typical storyline and storytelling.