YOU ARE MINE - Jackie Ashenden
A Nine Circles Novel, Book 3
St. Martin's Paperback
ISBN-13: 978-1-250-05178-3
October 2015
Romantic Suspense

New York City, Present Day

Seven years ago, Zac Rutherford met Eva King. She was an eighteen-year-old computer hacker whom he wanted to hire; she was using a computer at night after being taken off the streets and being used as a sex slave for the previous two years. He rescued her and has taken care of her ever since; giving her a job and helping her start her own company to help women caught up in sexual slavery. Now she has a penthouse apartment, but she is still in a jail of her own experiences. Zac and his two best friends, Alex St. James and Gabriel Woolf, started their own group years ago, the Nine Circles, their motto: don't ask, don't tell. All of the three men have a connection to a group of men who have almost destroyed their lives. Zac used to be a Dom, but for the past year hasn't even been interested in that; Eva controls his thoughts, even though she can't go outside by herself, Zac is the only person she trusts, and yet she has never given him an inkling that she is interested in him romantically. How long can Zac submerge his desires, or has giving her seven years to recover from what happened to her made her even more entrenched in her fears?

As a child, Eva's mother left, her father took and sold meth, and at sixteen she was living on the streets of New York City. She was kidnapped off the streets and lived in a house where whenever he wanted, the Man would have her stripped, blindfolded, and taken to him for sex. At night she learned the computer and started hacking until Zac's company traced her and he asked her to work for him. Telling him not to ask questions, he met her in his car outside her prison, clad only in a man's coat. She is now well-known in New York for her business and computer knowledge, but still after seven years can stand no person's touch. She can only go outside with Zac beside her but continues to live each day as if she's still in a prison of her own making. A member of the Nine Circles, she has lived with the damage inflicted on Alex and Gabriel, until a man named Fitzgerald pops up as a possible person behind the death of Alex's father years ago and the shooting of his step-father, and also he was a partner with the man who raped Alex years ago. Zac has finally decided treating Eva with kid gloves isn't working, and perhaps treating her to what he needs from her will bring forth her power and strength as a woman. Finding out who Fitzgerald is, and if he is the man behind her kidnapping is scary, but it is past time she faced up to what happened to her and see if she and Zac can have a future together.

Jackie Ashenden is once again introducing us to the Nine Circles Club, millionaires whose lives have been touched by a group headed by Evelyn Fitzgerald, a millionaire and highly regarded man in New York. Told from Zac's and Eva's points of view, Eva has lived for years trapped by her experiences, never letting go of them. Zac has tried to give her time to heal, but perhaps his vaunted patience has done more to harm her than help her move on from what happened to her.

The secondary characters are other members of Nine Circles: Alex and his lover Katya, and Gabriel and his lover Honor, Alex's sister. Also are Evelyn Fitzgerald—no mercy in him—and Elijah Hunt. Is Hunt Fitzgerald's employee, or does Eva sense that he, too, has another reason for being there with Fitzgerald?

YOU ARE MINE continues the Nine Circles Club, following MINE TO TAKE (November 2014) and MAKE YOU MINE (May 2015). The secrets of the men who were friends with Fitzgerald over fifteen years ago damaged Alex, kidnapped Eva and ruined Gabriel's life are deep and hidden. Also involved is Elijah, the mercenary. How does he fit in and what did Fitzgerald do to ruin his life? Elijah's story will be told next in KIDNAPPED BY THE BILLIONAIRE (March 2016). Emotional and gripping, YOU ARE MINE is a powerful story of coming back to life after an ordeal that changes everything about you.

Carolyn Crisher