** 2.5 ⭐️ **

This book had the makings of a pretty decent psychological thriller - find the Black Cat Stalker. However, roughly 50% in, it became a romance/mystery story instead. The romance proceeded to carry the rest of the book, which was between two characters who A) barely knew each other, and B) didn’t seem to have much chemistry, aside from some minor sexual tension on 2 occasions of prior meeting.

What was all the more frustrating was that nowhere was it mentioned that Easton began stalking Mia before they developed a romance of opportunity…. And they’re trying to catch a stalker!!!

Maybe I was just irritated from 50% onwards (because I was sold on a story I was no longer interested in once it became sappy and sentimental), but I also started to notice some continuity errors and glossing over of actions made by secondary characters.

The eventual stalker was caught, the explanation was reasonable and well explained, but then it went downhill into sappy-pap town again until the end.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

"Rule number one. Always know everything you can about the person you're hunting."

Talk about your stay-awake-until-two-in-the-morning-even-with-an-early-shift type of book! I started this later in the evening, and couldn't bring myself to put it down until the next morning, a mere few hours before I had to be back at work.

While Buried Deception is marketed as a mystery/thriller romance, I would more so say that it's a thriller, with threads of romance on the back-burner. Which, it can be annoying to have a less developed relationship in a novel that spouts a 'romance' it makes sense for this novel, and the relationship between Mia and Easton was 100% believable for their situation. BUT. You're not reading this for the romance. READ IT FOR THE PLOT BECAUSE HOLY COW.

Seriously. Pick this up if you're looking for all-night thriller.

CW: mentions of stalking, kidnapping, sexual assault, sexual battery, gun use

Buried Deception is set to be published in late September 2022. Thank you to Montlake, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC.

"Buried Deception" was a novel with an excellent blend of action, crime, psychological thriller and romance. Dr. Mia Frost is a renowned psychologist known for her work with hypnotherapy and patients dealing with PTSD and dissociative amnesia. Little does the world know that she believes herself to be a fraud, silently struggling with the effects of her own trauma. The author has done an amazing job of creating a steadfast, successful character and slowly peeling back those layers to the point where the reader actually doubts the truth.

Mia works closely with Easton Crew, the perfect hero and ideal alpha male. He runs his own company dedicated to the search and rescue of missing persons, but he is also a man of mystery. He is extremely protective, but also empathetic and gentle-mannered when it counts. He too struggles with his own traumas, choosing to keep people at a distance for fear of suffering too much.

"Buried Deception" contains scenes detailing sexual assault and battery, stalking and kidnapping. It is a hard and graphic novel with a strong emotional impact.

As the professional merges with the love affair, Easton begins to doubt Mia's motives and fears she is becoming too involved in the investigation. As the mystery unravels and more clues emerge, we also discover Mia's past.

Let me start by saying that I really enjoyed this book. Once I started the novel, I had a hard time putting it down. It's full of suspense and twists that you definitely won't see coming. Just when you think you've got it figured out, you'll be thrown for another loop.

Thanks to Amanda McKinney, Montlake Publishing & NetGalley for allowing me to have an advance copy. I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.

This one was a lovely read. I really enjoyed reading this one. I just love this kind of books.
4.5stars read for me

DNF @ 50%

I am very much in the minority here but I just couldn’t care enough about these characters to continue. I went into this one thinking it would be a romantic suspense but we are 50% in and there has barely been any actual suspense or build up. Also instalust/instalove is a big turn off for me and that trope is in this one. I will look into this author in the future I just don’t think this book is for me

I will leave a review on Amazon and B&N on Sept 20th

This was my first book by this author, and I loved it. Thrillers are one of my favorite genres, and this was Wow! Filled with twists and turns, until the very end I wasn't sure what was going to happen. I finished this book in just a few hours. I definitely would recommend this book to others.

I received and ARC from NetGalley and the publisher Montlake, without any obligation to leave a favorable review the opinion expressed here is my own.

Although more mystery than romance, the storyline was good, this was an excellent book that was complete with suspense, twists, and danger for its characters. McKinney wrote not only a great mystery, she wrote with feeling so that I felt I knew Mia and Easton and as we have learned in our own lives, some things and people are not what we think.
An excellent book and great start to Amanda McKinney’s latest series and can’t wait for her next release.

Unexpected, having read the three “Cabin..” books I expected this to be more of a protector romance but I don’t think it is at all. In fact this book is actually far more of a complex thriller than anything else.

Decidedly dark, most certainly triggering at times (caution advised) there is a most strange romantic dance undertaken in this book that takes a good while to really pick up in pace and once it does is still a battle of wills and trust.

But that isn’t what you will be reading this book for, once it gets under your skin (which happens rather quickly) you find yourself wondering what you are reading, where it will be going and trying to untangle the who, the what, the why and the when with each turn of the page.

Complicated at times, emotional and shocking at others this book is a bit of a journey but one that will captivate your interest.

My one downside is that for the thrill element, the romance did pay a price and the ending felt rushed in an effort to put a nice bow around it.

But on the upside, the other members of the Lynx team seem to be ripe for their own stories to be told which is an intriguing prospect indeed

Tense thriller with romance
I love how this author can write in such a way that the descriptions and sounds make me feel as if I am there. The writing is so natural and smooth with great dialogue. She gets into the heads of each character with the best of them and makes them seem so real. This story has a good plot that moves with plenty of action throughout the story. There is suspense, tension and twists that kept me on the edge of my seat. It was a very engaging read and loved it from beginning to end, an unpredictable page turner. A full length standalone that I highly recommend to read. I received this book for free and voluntarily reviewed.

This book was simply quite an excellent read for me. As, it was a right balanced of emotional, romance and general fiction.

An excellent read. So much of this is violently emotional, trauma is a real and dangerous place. Easton and Mia are both the end results of trauma and coping with the fall out. The story is filled with the maneuvering and evils of insanity and light at the end. There are triggers galore, so beware, but an excellent, exciting read. Add this to your TBR list.

‘A victim of trauma finding a way to survive.’

I will start this by saying that Buried Deception does contain scenes detailing sexual assault and battery, stalking and kidnapping. If these are triggers for you then please heed this warning before reading.
I say this every time I read one of Amanda’s books, that she couldn’t get better than the one before. The truth is every time she does. Buried Deception had me hooked from the very beginning and if I didn’t have to actually do some work I would have read it in one day. However work getting in the way I had to settle for two.

We follow the story of Dr Mia Frost who is a therapist and psychological profiler enlisted to help in the case of a seventeen-year-old girl who was brutally attacked whilst running on the Black Cat Trails. However, what no one knows about Mia is she herself is hiding a horrific past, one that makes her feel like a fraud, a fake and lives with her every single day. The issue with this particular case, it bears a huge resemblance to what happened to Mia in the past. A resemblance that Mia cannot ignore.

Easton Crew is the CEO of Lynx Search and Rescue, a local company that has been enlisted to help find the girl. Once the girl is found, he finds himself working with Mia trying to find the perpetrator of the crime. Along with dealing with his own tormented past.

Can both of them deal with the issues of the past and see what they have between them. If they do will it be too late?

Buried Deception is an excellent first book in the On The Edge series and will having you guessing right up until the final chapters. You will wonder yourself if you have missed the clues as you are taken through the twists and turns of the plot line. With deceptions and back-stabbing you will be pulled along with the story.

Romantic Mystery and Suspense is my favourite genre, and Amanda Mckinney is in my personal opinion, is one of the best authors at providing suspense and angst. No matter how tormented you find yourself falling in love with the characters and I find myself relating to them on so many levels. I cannot wait to see what comes next from the mind of Amanda, I know it will be good. I just have to hope it is Beckett, because I have already fallen in love with him.

Thanks to Amanda McKinney, Montlake Publishing & NetGalley for allowing me to have an advance copy. I am leaving this honest review voluntarily.

Okay. So I do love me a good romance. This is a good story. The author writes well, I was interested in the story right away. I got my HEA, and the suspense was awesome. Basically, women are being attacked in the woods in their town. Mia is a psychologist who works with people with PTSD. She also struggles with it, as well as dissociative amnesia. Because of this, she (and Crew, the male lead) do question whether she could've been the culprit. I won't post spoilers, but this is a good story. I do have some issues. Crew is a bit stalker-ey. I know the alpha male thing is hot and I do like that trope, but I don't feel like the author laid the groundwork to keep it from being creepy. Otherwise, I did like this book and feel like it was worth a read. I'll read more by this author as well.

A fantastic start to a new romantic suspense series! A stalker has been preying on women on a hiking trail in the town of Skull Hollow in East Texas. After the latest incident where a woman is brutally attacked and the infamous Black Cat Stalker is suspected, two characters team up to find the suspect. Psychologist Mia Frost is hired to draft a psychological profile of the suspect. She has endured her own trauma in the past and the effects are still being felt. Easton Crew is a former marine and runs LYNX, a tactical tracking company. He is a strong, protective, alpha male type. Sparks fly between them and the attraction is a nice breather from the intense action and suspense of the case. I was glued to the page to find out who was the assailant, but what set this above other suspense stories was the writing and the level of detail provided on PTSD, tracking, etc. I felt like I learned something and that the two main characters were real professionals. I also enjoyed the side characters at LYNX and hope they are more heavily features in future books in the series.

OMW, another superb series starter. The psychological thriller, murder mystery and romance all flow seamlessly together in this tightly woven story!

Skull Hollow is about to become as infamous as Berry Springs for his homicide rate. A rash of attacks on a hiking trail has escalated to a serious assault on a young woman. The town drafts in Dr Mia Frost to help profile the offender. However, Mia may be hiding her own secrets - secrets that make her fear that her own traumatic past is resurfacing and linked to the new series of crimes.

Easton Crew, is a Marine Veteran and now runs an elite tracking company in Skull Hollow. He has traumas of his own to deal with and dealing with the oddball, psychologist is sparking all his protective instincts. He knows she's keeping secrets, secrets that have made her the wary, stubborn, fiercely independent firecracker he's fast falling for.

Mia is the best advertisement for her own work with hypnotherapy and PTSD. She still feels the effects decades later of her own horrific assault and her disassociative amnesia means that she knows she is missing vital information. She believes she is a faker, not worthy of everything she has accomplished but I fully believe that Mia is a survivor, she made her own path to recovery. She is not perfect, she makes mistakes but she owns them and never tried to make excuses for her failings.

Easton is the perfect blend of a fierce warrior, protective hero, and empathetic lover. He may think he is the terrifying, stoic, warrior but he hides a soft heart and empathetic core.

I eagerly await more in this series as Eastons colleagues are all suitably intriguing and I can't wait to see what trouble they find themselves in.

TW: Sexual Assault/Violence

I enjoyed this one more than expected! It is dark, but the romance really added a light to it that I so appreciated. It's hard not to love Easton and Mia. They have both been through so much in their lives and have a mix of strength and vulnerability. They fit so well together, and their romance really made this story for me. The mystery is interesting, and I enjoyed the different twists and turns. Looking forward to the second book in this series!

BD by A. McKinney, published by Montlake is the first full-length novel in On the Edge Series.
Mia is a therapist with a rough past, she's annoyingly bitter and that doesn't change over the length of the story. She's through a lot and still has hang ups.
Easton is the Chief of a search and rescue team. The case of a 17 year old brings them together.
In a weird poetic way this story got to me. I didn't like the heroine - too many issues, but I liked the hero just fine.
A suspenseful, fast paced, action packed story, literally unable to put down had me on the edge of my seat from start till the last page. Twisty and full of unexpected turns, gives this book all the feels and leaves with a bang.

When a seventeen-year-old girl, local high school student, goes missing, Sheriff McNamara with the Skull County is called in to investigate. The sheriff would be investigating the case alongside Easton Crew, former marine and now the founder of LYNX Group a combat tracking training facility and volunteer search-and-rescue team
Thank you to Amanda McKinney, NetGalley and Montlake for the arc of this book.

What an absolutely gripping book! This story had it all - suspense, mystery, drama, and of course romance. There were touches of sensitive issues that some may find upsetting, but I honestly felt they were written in a tasteful way. Loved the characters, real with real life situations and feelings. Could not put it down once I started. Highly recommend.
I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you @netgalley for the ARC.

I love a good romance and this book did not disappoint.
This book does come with some trigger warning so check before you read.
However that don't stop you wanting to turn every page over.

In one weekend I finished this book and I can see it on the best sellers list.
Can't wait to get a hard copy for my shelf.