Yeah, that’s right! We’re wrapping up both books these week! We’re taking off next week, but we’ll be back with two new books. Speculate wildly on what they might be!
Beautiful Redemption: Epilogue
The epilogue picks up years later, with Liis unpacking from moving after landing her dream job as an Intelligence Analyst at the NCAVC in Quantico. Also, remember how in the last chapter they both got shot by that guy who was suddenly a proper antagonist instead of this book’s C-narrative?
The thick circular scar on my lower abdomen […] would always remind me of Thomas. It helped me to pretend he was close when he wasn’t. Our matching scars were a little like the feeling of being under the same sky— but better.
Remember that one time a few chapters ago that Thomas told Liis that they were “matching scars”, but it didn’t really make sense because they don’t have the same history/baggage at all? I’m glad that theme became literal.
Thomas arrives, and as it would happen, this is right after the FBI’s final confrontation with Benny! The one that made up the epilogue of Walking Disaster AKA the “Travis is fucking dual-wielding glocks and this is his real grownup job” scene. I’m actually kind of glad that all the epilogues for these books (except for Trenton’s, because even these books think Trenton’s pretty boring) center around this focal point. It’d be better if the mob subplot carried any real weight so we ever cared about it ever, but I’ll take it.
“Trav’s cover was blown. Benny and his men took him underground. I panicked at first, but Sawyer got a location on them. We listened while they beat Travis for a good hour. […] Travis got some good intel.” He laughed once without humor. “Benny was making a grand speech and giving him everything, thinking Travis was about to die.”
I love how the Maddox Brother novels are so goddamn tropey that they work in cliches that aren’t even in the romance genre.
“The stupid son of a bitch thretened Abby. He began detailing the torture she would endure after he killed Travis. It was pretty graphic.”
“So, Benny’s dead,” I said, more of a statement than a question.
We don’t really know what’s all happened in the intervening years, and we can probably assume “a lot” since Travis works as a secret agent now, but is it maybe just a little disconcerting that nobody’s even remotely fazed that their hyper-violent relative went off script and straight up killed a person?
“Years of work, and Benny won’t even see the inside of a courtroom.”
Thomas frowned. “Travis said he was sorry.”
I MEAN SERIOUSLY.
Liis confides in the reader that Thomas doesn’t know that she and Abby have a secret plan to hand over “everything she had on her father” to the FBI “in exchange for keeping [Travis] home and out of trouble”. I guess on top of how Travis joined the FBI in exchange to stay out of trouble. I like how all of these books are really secretly about all the shit everyone has to do to keep their idiot relative who did an underground fight circle in college out of jail.
Liis and Thomas finally stop talking about the subplot from another book in the series and focus on giving their own novel a denouement.
“Are you happy to move?” I asked.
“I’m happy you got this job. You’ve worked toward it for a long time.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Did you doubt me?”
“Not for a second. But I was nervous about the ASAC position in DC. I was beginning to sweat getting settled before the baby arrived”
A BABBY?
Aw, man, that would have been a great blog nickname for Travis and Abby’s kids. I fucked up.
So, uh, I’m actually kinda pleased? Liis and Thomas aren’t the bickering, deeply unhealthy couple we’ve been treated to in every other Maddox Brother novel, and they’re both doing well at their jobs and have a baby on the way and… I’m actually kind of happy reading the end of this? Good for these two, the least fucked up of all the Maddox family?
But the blog ain’t called “Happy Books, Happy Times”, so let’s see if we can’t find one more thing to poke fun at.
“When we try to make plans together, nothing happens the way it’s supposed to,” I teased […]
“Don’t you know by now?” Thomas said, touching his lips to my hair. “It’s somewhere in the unforeseen when the best, most important moments of our lives seem to happen.”
…man, even the last line of the book isn’t that silly. Or even “bad”. A touch treacly, but not really significantly more so than the book as a whole, so… Oh my God. I need something to make fun of. Maybe there’s a hidden gem in the Acknowledgments?
Thank you to Kristy Weiberg, for not only being one of my biggest cheerleaders, but for also introducing me to Amy Thomure who is married to FBI Agent Andrew Thomure.
THE WRITER OF THIS GOOFY-ASS FBI AGENT ROMANCE NOVEL KNOWS A REAL FBI AGENT? OH MY GOD, DO GO ON.
Andrew, I appreciate your patience as I asked what you probably thought were odd questions, but you never made me feel that way. Thank you for all your help!
Andrew, thank you so much for what you have done we love you kthxbye
So…why name a book “Beautiful Redemption” if redemption isn’t even a theme? Or a plot point? At all?
If I’d actually read this book, I’d feel like it was a gigantic waste of time.
GOOD POINT
Obviously I’m expecting (and looking forward to) the next Crossfire novel, but I’m also hoping you guys will do Maze Runner because I just started reading it and… I don’t want to say it’s BAD, but the very first 7-line dialogue has 8 instances of slang, 5 of which are made-up words. It’s something.
Yeah Liis and Thomas have definitely been the strongest couple so far. Luckily (or unluckily) the twins seem like deeply unpleasant people.
Jiminy Cricket, how unpleasant does one have to be to be counted as “deeply unpleasant” among the Maddox bros?!?!?!
Well to be fair that’s “deeply unpleasant” compared to Travis’s “needs psychiatric help” and Trenton’s “douchetastic”