Undercover Christmas Escape is a well written romantic suspense. I enjoyed the edge of your seat plot. I recommend this book. I received an advance ebook from the publisher and Netgalley. This is my unbiased review.

An undercover operation goes awry when one of the operators, Sera, identifies her sister as part of the gang holding a Christmas party at gunpoint. She's determined to find out how her sister is involved and get her back. Her partner Duncan has his reservations, but stands by her side. When a drug cartel gets involved, the risk amplifies and Sera finds herself in their hands.

A romantic suspense novella where you'll turn pages til the story is done.

*Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC and for the opportunity to post an honest review.

This is a romantic suspense. While Sera and Duncan managed to survive, I saw no evidence that they or their team was actually competent. Their main goal was to capture a drug lord, so Sera had a tracking device to slip onto this man when he visited a party. Another criminal crashed the party instead, and they want him, too. Sera put the tracker on her sister, who was a member of this crime gang who stole something the drug lord wanted. You'd think this tracker would be followed by multiple sources as it's so important, but, no, only by a handheld tracker, which Sera stole when setting off on her own. On multiple occasions, this elite team knew where one or both of the bad guys were going, but instead of calling in others and capturing the bad guys, somehow they always ended up outnumbered and on the run. Each top bad guy apparently handled his own crimes personally and showed up repeatedly with their 2-3 favorite bodyguards. They knew the odds and had many opportunities, but, no.

So many smaller details were odd, too. Sera used a sharp knife to remove a long sleeve sweater to expose a wound (hard not to cut someone that way!) when she was in a fully furnished house with a first aid kit at her side. Why not use scissors? At one point, she put the tracker on herself and accidently left the device showing her location behind in plain sight of the bad guys, but she never once wondered if that might be why the bad guys always knew exactly where she was. The bad guys initially wore masks but then used their actual names when talking to each other during the crime. And so on.

Sera was very impulsive with a high risk tolerance. Duncan was normally a careful planner but felt it was up to him to keep her from getting killed. She didn't want help, yet Duncan kept forcing her to accept his leadership. Sera's irritated that he's always right. Neither had time for relationships. Yet suddenly both decided they're madly in love with each other. Hmm. I just don't see Sera putting up with Mr. Knight to the Rescue for very long as she didn't like the role of damsel in distress.

Both Sera and Duncan were Christians and prayed for help. There was no sex or bad language. It may have been exciting, but this whole story just didn't work for me.