Anita's Reviews > Leverage

ARC provided by the Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Janie Crouch is amazing at taking material that would fill 400+ pages for another author and making that material super suspenseful and so romantic all under 300 pages. Leverage has everything it needs and nothing it doesn't.

Dylan lost his wife and unborn child 6 years ago. He quit his job at Omega Sector and put his emotions in a deep freeze. He has been asked to bring computer code to Omega Sector that deals with a terrorist attack.

Shelby is a kid's computer game genius, she is also a math savant who can keep numbers in her head like nothing else. In reviewing the code for a kid's game she sees and retains the code for a terrorist plot. She has the code in her brain. Omega Sector needs her in Washington D.C. as soon as possible. That is a problem for Shelby. She doesn't like people and rarely leaves her home.

Dylan at first thinks he is just going to get a disk or a drive from Shelby with the code on it. He doesn't know she has the code in her brain. Spending dinner with Shelby, Dylan had a hot connection with her, which he shuts down immediately when he learns she is going with him. Shelby chalks his abrupt change from hot to stone cold to something she said or did and is hurt and disheartened that opening herself up got her shot down.

Someone is out to kill Shelby to prevent her from getting the information she has to Omega Sector and Dylan has to protect her, but who is going to protect Dylan from Shelby? All along the way Dylan blows hot and then cold. Shelby has no idea what his true feelings are and is sure he is still in love with his dead wife and that he is just using her for sex.