The Cage Family series #5

Carrie Ann Ryan

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Sophia Cage doesn’t need a protector—she needs a night to pretend her world didn’t splinter. After her world burned, she found herself a single mom, a struggling dance studio owner, and unable to do the one thing that had brought her out of the darkness.

Dance.

When Carson walks into her life, all she can see is the broken person she’d been when they’d first met. She’s stronger than the ghosts of her past, at least that’s what she tells herself. Yet with each accidental encounter with the mysterious and dangerous man who’s inserted himself into the Cage family orbit, she’s finding it harder to walk away.

Carson Woods doesn’t trust people. He’s spent his life protecting his sister from their family and the world all while making sure his businesses are the best in their fields.

Then he meets her.

One wrong move with the shattered yet pieced together Sophia could not only fracture his working relationship with the only friends he has but harm the woman he tells himself he cannot crave.

Sophia Cage has lived in fear, and is on the other side rebuilding her life with her twin daughters. Running her dance studio now that her full time performance days are over, she leans on her family when she needs to, but loves seeing her students build their skills. She isn’t done with her ex though, as the lawyers are still working through custody decisions. She doesn’t want her daughters to have to see their father, but since he never threatened them, she can’t keep them away forever.

Carson Woods works with the Cages and was there the night that Sophia’s world shifted forever. He hates that he reminds her of that night when they meet again, but is in awe of her strength. He isn’t a relationship kind of guy, but finds himself drawn to her and her daughters, even as he tells himself (and her brothers) that he isn’t interested.

I loved the way these two found the way behind the other’s walls. Carson is immediately protective of both her and the girls, having seen what she left behind. He may not want a relationship, but he wants her and he wants her safe. She just wants an escape from her reality for a little bit, and why not with the man who is at least good enough to be friends with her family. Even though she doesn’t trust her own taste in men, she figures he won’t hurt her simply because of the connection to her family.

There were some predictable bits to this story, but also some great twists that had both characters evaluating what was important to them. The Cage family has overcome so much over the course of their series, and while their father’s machinations are no longer keeping them together, the bonds they built while exercising the conditions of his will have formed a unified, cohesive group of adults who love and care for each other and rush surround any sibling that needs help (from either branch of the family).

Carrie Ann Ryan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary, paranormal, and young adult romance. Her works include the Montgomery Ink, Wilder Brothers, Promise Me, and Elements of Five series, which have sold millions of books worldwide. She’s the winner of a RT Book of the Year and a Prism Award in her genres. She started writing while in graduate school for her advanced degree in chemistry and hasn’t stopped since. Carrie Ann has written over one hundred novels and novellas with more in the works. When she’s not losing herself in her emotional and action-packed worlds, she’s reading as much as she can while wrangling her clowder of cats who have more followers than she does.