Annoying-brainless-wimpy-female

He's strong. Fierce. Relentless.And he may be her only chance of surviving the night.

Gray Box operative Castle Kinkade always gets the job done, no matter how tough the assignment. But when he agrees to protect white-hat hacker Kit Westcott, Castle's loyalty is tested like never before. Trapped in the closest of quarters, protective instincts flaring, he can feel the ice surrounding his heart melt...and he knows he'd do anything to keep Kit safe.

Even defy the rules that shaped his life.

Castle is the last person Kit should confide in, let alone be attracted to, but he's the only ally she has left. Under threat of imminent attack—and a chilling conspiracy that hits too close to home—Castle and Kit are forced to put their hearts and lives on the line...and stop at nothing to face the greatest danger the world has ever known.

‘Until the End’ is one that’s cut from the same cloth as the other books in Juno Rushdan’s series: intricately plotted and very well-written even if I’m a bit more distantly connected to her protagonists than I normally am. It’s a story that slips into action almost immediately—Rushdan’s writing pushes the pace along relentlessly—and there’s nary a moment of letting up unless you’re intentionally meant to take that bit of a breather before something else sinister pops up and the action barrels on again.

In short, I was full of admiration for the way Rushdan juggled the impressive plot and sub-plots, the action, the secondary characters and the puzzling layers that were found in every scene, giving such a visual experience to her writing that this could have well been a Bond/Bourne/Mission Impossible movie with an infinite number of sequels waiting to hatch in the background.

I was squinty-eyed however, about some of her characters (some were downright insecure, annoying, simpering and/or plainly unlikeable) as multiple POVs shaped a huge conspiracy surrounding national security, as ‘Until the End’ felt more like a mainstream thriller than something that was purely romantic suspense. Rushdan drew Castle as a veritable hero who’d run from his demons, and emerged a near-super soldier type guy with his absolutely loyalty and moral compass tested at the very end, while Kit Westcott both struck and frustrated me with her eye-rolling TSTL stubbornness and her scrappiness as they both struggled to keep their heads above water.

There was a villain so machiavellian that it took my breath away, even more so because Rushdan excelled at writing within grey and blurred boundaries of good and wrong, then leaving room for so much more as the world as we knew it shook and trembled in the aftermath of the climax.

As much as this could be considered a gushing review nonetheless, the ending didn’t leave me with much confidence that her series of books are stories that would profusely profess a HEA. For Castle/Kit, maybe this was their be-all and end-all. Yet there were other secondary characters who needed their acts cleaned up, yet we were left in the embers of promised change that hadn’t yet come to pass, merely the idea that broken bones or hearts still needed to heal.