In My Arms Tonight by Bailey Bradford

Title: In My Arms Tonight

Series: Love In Xxchange 08

Author: Bailey Bradford

Genre: Contemporary

Length: Novel (190pgs)

Publisher: Total E-Bound (23rd April 2012)

Heat Level: Moderate

Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥4Hearts

Reviewer: Pixie

Blurb: James Stratton’s moral cost him everything and he never thought he’d recover until one very stubborn, loving man showed James he deserved to be loved.

James Stratton was proof there was such a thing as a lawyer with morals—and he paid a very high price for them. A successful plan to stop a sadistic murderer ended up costing James everything. After being kidnapped and assaulted, he was held in a ‘facility’ where he was kept medicated, ostensibly for his own good. In reality, his parents had had him kidnapped again—for his own safety, they’d claim, once he’d been freed.

Glenn Shearing, former FBI agent and deeply closeted, fell for James before he ever met him. All it’d taken was reading the file on the extraordinary man, and Glenn knew he’d found someone worth stepping out of the closet for. He risked everything to free James, and didn’t consider it much of a loss when he left his job and headed for Texas.

James needs all the help he can get after what he’s been through, and Glenn wants to be there for him. James isn’t ready for any kind of intimacy, not after being hurt physically and emotionally. But will he push Glenn away one time too many? Or will he let Glenn’s love help him heal?

Purchase Link: http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?P_ID=1626

This book is part of a series and must be read in order.

Review: Because of what James started with the Rollins, many people paid the price. James being one of the worst effected and it didn’t end with his rescue, because then his parents got involved. And if not for the dedication of his best friend, Chase, and with a determined FBI agent to lend a hand, then he would still be in hell. Glenn is a FBI agent who worked the Rollins case. He rescued James from his kidnappers and then again from the ‘facility’ James parents had placed him in. Glenn sees something in James that he wants to get to know, so follows him to the town. But, can these two men be together after everything they have seen and been through?

Bailey Bradford has finally given us the story of James, who we have wondered about for many a book. Now it’s his time to shine along with Glenn’s, but they have problems to work through. James has had traumatic experiences and although we don’t get the in’s and out’s we do know that it was horrific for him. It’s left him with panic attacks and a skewered vision of himself and feeling like he is less than a man, especially in the eyes of Glenn, who saw James when he was at his most vulnerable. Glenn doesn’t think that James is weak.  He actually believes that James is a strong survivor, but, he knows he has to take his time with James. But, the longer James seems to push him away, the more he starts to lose hope.

I loved this book for its seriousness of James problems. Nothing was swept under the carpet. He didn’t instantly make a startling recovery and it was a long progress that took into consideration everything he had suffered. Although there is an attraction between James and Glenn, their relationship doesn’t get off the ground until nearly halfway through the book and that was due to what James had suffered and also because of Glenn’s doubts that James would want an older man like him. So it’s a rocky start for them both, as fears and doubts get in the way, and they also have the added outside pressure for someone lurking around town and then James parents turning up.

So, in this book we have wounded souls, hopeful suitors, interfering parents, guilt, hope, spying PI’s, hot sex, the beginning of healing and a happy ending, but that isn’t just all it has. there’s understanding and helpful friends, everyone pulling together to protect a man who lost everything and fought with everything he had to do the right thing and a man who risked everything on the off-chance that the man he fell for, would want him back… this is a must read book.