DadReadsRomance

A romantic thriller steeped in dramatic irony.

Medium Used: 100% Paperback

Ratings out of 5

Overall Rating: 💜💜💜

Sweetness Level: 🍫🍫

Steam Heat Level: 🔥🔥

FMC Likability: 🏺🏺🏺🏺

MMC Likability: ⌨️⌨️⌨️⌨️

Plot Engagement: 1st half: 😍😍 2nd half: 🛥️🔫🔍🤨

At least 1 bad dad (pass/fail): 0️⃣

Spoiler Free Review

Concrete Evidence is a Contemporary (2013) Romantic Mystery about two employees at an international engineering firm in Bethesda, MD, Talon & Drake. Our FMC is 29 year old Erica Kesling, a low ranking archeologist and environmental assessor at Talon and Drake. Unbeknownst to her colleagues and superiors, Erica is an experienced underwater archeologist but has been blackballed after accidentally helping Jake, a treasure hunter, steal artifacts a year ago. Her mistake has forced her to move from the West-coast to East-coast, hide her underwater expertise, and pray that Talon & Drake assigned her to a project that will give her a chance to redeem herself. Our MMC is Lee Scott. Lee is pretending to be Erica's newly assigned incompetent intern, a 25 year old perpetual undergraduate student that has taken an interest in archeology and landed the job through nepotism. We quickly learn reality Lee is a 30 something and close friend of CEO JT Talon that is using the internship as cover to investigate a tip JT received that Talon & Drake employees are using their defense contracts in Iraq to facilitate an artifact smuggling ring. JT wants the investigation done privately because if it becomes public it will end his father's (former CEO and current Senator) presidential campaign before it starts.

Lee and JT are secretly aware of Erica's colored history and she is a key person of interest in Lee's investigation. Lee immediately struggles to draw a line between the person Erica appears to be and her alleged artifact smuggling. Erica immediately struggles to deal with a useless and immature pain in the ass that has shown up right as she gets assigned a project that will give her the shot she's been looking for to clear her name. They both immediately struggle with having to work with somebody so dame attractive that they cannot go more than 20min without thinking about it. Our story is written in the third person but includes 'mental perspective' that rotates between Erica and Lee depending on the chapter.

In my opinion the first half of this book (merely okay) felt very different than the second half of this book (good and at times great). The premise was fun from there is a prologue that established dramatic irony that perfectly balanced establishing suspense and intrigue without giving any of the mystery. However, for most of the first half the mystery progresses at a snails pace that I found myself questioning the logic in including the prologue in a Romance that includes a mystery. I love a slow burn (which this is) Romance so I was still entertained in the first half but the flirtatious banter between Lee and Erica was not to my taste so it started to drag a bit. The Second half the book was what I was expecting after reading the prologue, non-stop thrillers and suspense with the occasional twist to keep you guessing.

What I liked about this book

• In her Afterword Rachel Grant talks about how she incorporated her personal experience as an archeologist and that certain aspects of the book were a pseudo memoirs. It shows ¹ .
• The meet cute was funny, charming, and had the perfect amount of sass.
• The action scenes had really great tension and the descriptions made it very easy for me to visualize what was happening.

What I did not like about this book

• Lee is the tallest tall man that ever talled and boy do we dwell on this.
• Meanwhile Erica is the bustiest bust woman that ever busted and girl do we dwell on this too.
• Its age showed a bit with the Iraq war as a major plot point and how it handled race representation.

Spoilers Review

Click to reveal spoilers

• There is a final action sequence in an empty D.C. metro that is just fantastic. The build up and tension are great. The fact that we have known Erica has been preparing for this from chapter 1. The threat to the innocent girl. Lee watching on the monitors not able to help but also believing in her.
• The pool table hustling is magnificent. I wish there had been more billiards. Is there like an enemy to lovers sports romance centered around pool because I think I could read a whole romance book about people playing pool.
• There were multiple twists at the end. Some of them I saw coming some of them I did not. The best one that I did not anticipate at all though was Erica's boss knowing about her past the whole time. It was so heartwarming and poetic. Its nice when some of the twists are uplifting and not betrayals. 💜

What I didn't like Spoilers

• Lee takes way too long to realize something is amiss when Erica is locked in the basement. 0/10 dude like this woman and how much you love her is your only thought since you met her and you don't hear a generator get turned on?
• (Major Spoiler) >!The Senator being in on the crime was both too predictable and a step too far imho. What is it with the romance genre and having to have evil dads even in a story with no evil dads ^/s ?
• I kept waiting to learn more about the titular concrete. In the afterword we learn why it just kind of ends up being “okay this was a project by the same guy who designed the LCVPs for the invasion of Normandy in WWII and it did not really go anywhere. I was expecting the concrete to play more into the mystery and I wanted it to be like an interesting lost engineering discovery. I understand that since it was based on true events – in this case the authors actual career researching the same thing – it could not be this way but big let down for me personally that the titular concrete was not like a big turns out at the end.

Book Content Warnings for Concrete Evidence by Rachel Grant

• Claustrophobia
• Kidnapping
• Children in danger
• Gun Violence
• Survival of dramatic experiences including sexual assault
• (minor spoiler) Apartment Break-ins and ransacking
• (minor spoiler) Flashbacks to sexual assault and threat of rape
• Underwater Diving, Including minor malfunctions of equipment
• Unreasonably Tall MMC ^/s
• Unreasonably Curvy (yet thin) FMC ^/s

This Book Reminded Me of

• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown in a weird mystery fiction based a bit on true history/artifact way.
• Look it is not nearly as good so do not expect the same high but the second half, particularly some of the action, had some of the vibes of The Mindf*ck Series by S.T. Abby.
• The Television series Bones except it is made by Michael Shur and Patty Jenkins? It certainly has Bones vibes in the plot or maybe I am just drawing an equivalence because bones are part of the mystery.

Who should read this book?

People who like slow burns, lots of lust/sexual tension, secret pasts, and mysteries will be right at home here. If you prefer a faster plot then it might not be for you. If you're seeking Spice first and plot second then I would go with something else.

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