What the blurb says: “Thea Paris is one of the world’s one elite kidnapping negotiators and the only woman in her field. Undercover operations and high-risk extractions are a part of daily life for Thea. Her only objective: getting her hostages out alive, at any cost.

But Thea is about to face her toughest challenge yet to free a very special client: her father. An oil tycoon on the verge of a world-altering deal, Thea’s father is snatched off his yacht in Greece from right under Thea’s nose. With no ransom demands and only cryptic messages left in Latin, Thea knows it will take all her experience and resolve to bring her father home alive. But with traumatic memories of her brother’s kidnapping 20 years earlier still haunting her and trying to hide her diabetes from her colleagues, Thea Paris could have finally met her match.”

First up, I have to say this is one hell of a story. Plunging straight into the action right from the get-go, we meet Thea Paris – kidnap negotiator – in the jungles of Kwale, Nigeria, leading a mission by stealth to bring back a man held captive for ransom. She’s tough, determined, and focused on the job in hand. And from those very first pages I was hooked.

The Freedom Broker is about a lot more than pure action though (although there’s plenty of that too) it’s about family dynamics and difficult relationships, about how it feels to be a woman operating in a very male dominated profession, it’s about secrets and revenge and how our past informs our present.

And although Thea Paris might be the ultimate action woman – she knows her guns and her helicopters just as well as any man – she’s also feminine and romantic, she’s a loving daughter and caring sister, and she manages a disability that she keeps hidden from almost everyone around her. She’s a character you want to succeed, that you root for, trust in and, after all the action has gone down, the kind of person it’d be great fun to go out for a few drinks with.

The Freedom Broker is a thrilling read, it’ll have you high on adrenaline and heart-wrenched with anxiety, and you’ll love every single minute of it.

Buy it now!

I’m counting the days until the second in the series comes out – for me it can’t be quickly enough!

Find out more about KJ Howe on her website here

And buy THE FREEDOM BROKER on Amazon here

Check back in later in the week to read my interview with KJ Howe.

And be sure to check out all the other great tour stops…