Stolen by Shiloh Walker

SWalker-Stolen

SWalker-StolenI have heard nothing but good things about Shiloh Walker, so I jumped at the chance to read her romantic suspense book, Stolen. Unfortunately, I just did not connect with Stolen at all. In fact, I barely made it past page 75 before giving up simply because both the hero and the heroine annoyed the crap out of me.

Shay Morgan has stayed hidden for a long time. Living a reclusive life in Earth’s End, Alaska, she’s as far away as she can get from the trauma of her childhood and the man who hurt her long ago. But terror takes over Shay’s life yet again when an unknown stalker steals away the fragile peace she’s built for herself—targeting not only her but the one man who’s ever managed to get past the walls she’s built around herself.

Elliot Winter has lived through being falsely accused before—it ruined his military career. Now it’s happening all over again. And this time, his accuser is a twisted impostor who’s targeting his ex-girlfriend, Shay. Despite a fierce mutual attraction, Shay and Elliot broke up because Shay couldn’t let her guard down, couldn’t let Elliot in. But now they both need to trust each other to confront a psycho who seems to know all their secrets.

I do love a heroine with a tortured past. However with Shay, the person she became, her reactions to her past, felt too extreme to me. I understand being a recluse but the fact that she didn’t even want to interact with people via the internet was too much. Especially since her online diary was basically just a blog. The only difference between that and Facebook is that Facebook is slightly more personal. I know that Shay had to be that anti-social for the plot to work out but the extremity of her fears kept me from connecting with her. I wanted to connect with her, I wanted to root for her, but the way she was acting made me want to shake her and tell her to get over herself.

At first, Elliot seemed like the perfect man. He was hot, protective, owned a bookstore and had seemingly infinite patience.  He and Shay dated for a year before Stolen takes place and eventually broke up with her because she never opened up to him. Yet, the first time she opened up to him and told him something important he basically told her to go away because he had his own problems to deal with. That’s when I finally called quits on Stolen. With both the hero and heroine annoying me, I just didn’t see any point in continuing.

The plot was just getting started when I quit Stolen. All that I got was that someone was impersonating Shay and trying to frame Elliot. It seemed interesting enough (who could possibly want to steal Shay’s identity when she tries her hardest to shut everyone out?) but, again, it all came down to the fact that I just did not like either Shay or Elliot. I know I keep saying that over and over in this review but that’s all I got from reading Stolen: annoyance.

In the end, this is just my opinion of Stolen. Like I said in my intro, I’ve heard nothing but good things about Shiloh Walker, and I’m even hearing lots of praise for Stolen. While I personally can’t recommend Stolenif you do like romantic suspense books, then you might want to give it a try. There are enough five-star reviews out there to prove that my opinion is definitely in the minority.

About Casey 203 Articles
Casey is the founder of Heart Full of Ink, Director at Reading Until Dawn Con, and a full time cheese addict. She's been ranting and reviewing for Literary Escapism since 2010, and is part of the trio #3Bloggers1Series podcast. When she's not reading, looking for new books, or stalking authors online (waiting for more books), she can be found binge watching Netflix. But really, her life is all about DEM BOOKS!