Detective Shane Ford's best friend, NFL star Brad Cooper, has just died and Shane finds himself caring for his sixteen year old son, Drew. At the same time, he is trying to make up for his behavior earlier in the year when he pushed Juvenile Officer Daisy Callahan out of his life. Daisy is understandably fearful of giving Shane another chance to hurt her. In the meantime, Drew starts at his new school and makes friends with a boy who leads him into trouble: skipping school, vandalism, smoking, and spying on the local drug dealer who happens to be his new friend's father. When Drew witnesses a murder, Shane must step in before his godson gets himself killed.
Sworn to Protect doesn't deliver much in the way of romantic suspense. The middle of the book is very slow, missing the opportunity to develop the suspense and the romance. Even though Daisy seems reluctant to reconnect with Shane, she ignores her fears completely to jump back into a relationship with him. Drew's situation doesn't amp up the suspense until almost the end of the book. The little conflict that there is in the story is very quickly solved. Overall, a disappointing miss. ( )

Lots of things going on from death of a close friend, to the hard decisions taking in a teenager and repairing a relationship. Hunky cop and hot cop babe pulling together.
( )

This series is off to a great start. With its wonderful cast of characters that include some of our old favorites from her previous series, its smoking hot love scenes, the strong sense of family and downright laugh out loud moments when you’re not expecting it.

Shane Ford and Daisy Callahan are characters we’ve meet throughout the Firefighters series. We got a glimpse of their relationship in the prequel Armed and Dangerous, which I recommend reading before this one. At the end of that one Shane’s fears cause him to walk away from Daisy and break her heart.

When Shane’s childhood friend Brad Cooper who is a NFL star and a single dad suddenly dies, Shane is thrust into the role of guardian/father to his godson Drew. Shane who was already having second thoughts about what he did to Daisy welcome’s her involvement to help him and Drew through the grieving process.

I thought the author did a great job of showing us all three angles of how each dealt with the grief. Shane had always been around Drew, helped raise him, so the love for him was already there but he was scared of suddenly being a parent to an angry grieving 16 year old. Drew didn’t quite have the wonderful life that most thought he did. His dad was absent most of the time and towards the end he ended up getting involved in things that lead to his death, all things that Drew had witnessed and kept to himself which eventually come back to haunt him and put him in danger. Daisy’s love for Shane and children made her be the glue that kept them all together but she was also very leery of handing her heart back over to Shane after what he did with it the last time.

The book dealt with a lot of serious subject matters dealt which in turn lead to some suspenseful scenes. During all of this we saw Shane decide he was going to fight for Daisy and win back her trust.

I’m thrilled about this new series and looking forward to many more books about the Sugarland PD.
( )

mystery and love ( )

A great start to this spin-off series.

I enjoyed Shane in the Firefighter series. I love men
in uniform, and Shane was not exception. He'd loyal and
smart - he knows when he messes up; except for typical
man things.

I love Daisy; her name may say flower but she's strong and
knows what and who she wants. She doesn't except anything
but what she feels she deserves. She was a friend when needed,
but also a lover too.

The story moved and flowed well. We also get to see the young
buy caught in the middle. I felt the story progressed well
and the angst was well written and believable

4.5 stars. Looking forward to the next in series. ( )