loved this book. love that there are more female authors out there. Really enjoyed this book. loved the story line and it had me on the edge of my seat. Kept me until the very end.

This was a solid 4 stars! Well written as Mary Burton novel’s are, it was like watching an episode of criminal minds! There were a couple of loose ends that weren’t tied up as neatly as I had hoped, but it had me gripped from beginning to end!
Recommend for all fans of a good American crime novel.

‘Never Look Back’ focuses on the Behavioural Unit’s leader Jerrod Ramsey, who goes to Tennessee to try and track down an illusive ‘key killer’ serial killer who’s been operating for years. he teams up with melina shepherd at the TBI, who narrowly missed being taken by the key killer.
While investigating, Jerrod and Melina Stumble on a case of a little girl found abandoned in a car crash. Much to their surprise they discover they have stumbled upon the workings of another serial killer, who is connected to melinas past.
** I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. ARC provided by NetGalley and the publisher**

Melina was dumped on the side of the road as a child. Taken in by the cop that found her and his wife she has grown into a cop herself. When she is almost grab by a killer the FBI shows up on another case that has come to life in her town. With 2 serial killers running around town and the with help of Agent Ramsey parts of Melina's life start to show up from before she was found on the side of the road.

I was hooked and could not stop reading from 10 mins into the book. This book is what I like in a mystery book, and very little romance if any at all. I know that probably sounds odd but I want murder and mystery. Ms Burton does not disappoint in this book at all. I have been a fan for many years and will continue to read what she writes.

4.5 stars
Somehow I’ve missed the second book in the series but I’ll be reading it asap because I loved the first book and I am interested in other stories by the author.
Her writing style with the competitive and compelling characters is ticking all the boxes in my list of a must-read story and Never Look Back doesn’t disappoint in any way.
The suspense and romance side are so great balanced that I couldn’t stop reading and before I knew it I was finished with the book.
Looking forward to more books in the series and more words from a favourite author now.

Another great thriller by Mary Burton! You will be hooked from the first page and will not be able to put it down until the last. Loved the characters, loved the plot and loved the quick pace of this thriller. Definitely recommend!

Melina Shepard, an agent of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, is helping out a friend by going undercover as a prostitute. Someone is picking off ladies of the night, and Melina barely escapes, when a man tries to kidnap her. Jerrod Ramsey, a FBI comes in when he finds out that Melina might have gotten a look at the serial killer. Jerrod has been trying to capture the man for years with no luck.
But another serial killer is at large, and nobody put it together since it is spread out over the states. The only reason the agents got on the trail when a car accident revels an abandoned little girl, and some body parts in the trunk. The little girls reminds Melina of herself when she was little , because she was abandon as a child in almost the same way.
Two serial killers, so many clues to figure out, that will have you not wanting to put the book down to get to the end.

This fast paced book with lots of action kept me completely engaged. I thought it was a good storyline with great characters. I liked the two main characters, Jerrod Ramsey and Melina Shepard, very much. I enjoyed their interactions and the way they worked together.

In this story, Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Agent Melina Shephard and FBI Agent Jerrod Ramsey are thrown together as they chase what ends up being two serial killers. They have a dangerous venture ahead as they work to find these killers.

This was a good romantic suspense, with a nice balance between the two.

Mary Burton delivers another fantastic romantic suspense novel in her Criminal Profiler Series. The characters are intense, relatable and easy to invest in. The crime fiction plot is well-told, intriguing, and down-right creepy. The palpable suspense felt throughout the book was fantastic.

Thank you to #NetGalley and @montlakeromance for the ARC of #NeverLookBack, which was read and reviewed voluntarily by Wayward Readers Book Review (@wayward_readers)

I volunteered to read and review through Netgalley a copy of Never Look Back .
This is such a well written story . It has so many twists and turns . It truely keeps you on the edge of you seat . I could not put it down .
Tennessee Bureau of investigation agent Melina Shepard is trying to get some answers about missing young women from the streets .
Working alone she is approached by a man in a white van . She is able to fight him off . Defending herself with her knife . She's able to get his blood as evidence . The next morning FBI Special Agent Jarrod Ramsey arrives . Because Melina has come face to face with a wanted serial killer . Soon Melina and Agent Ramsey start their investigation . Melina gets a call to a child left alone in a car accident and something found in the trunk they need to see .
Before their investigation is over Melina and Jarrod have their hands full . Melina's past comes to light and danger is everywhere . Agent Ramsey and Melina need to catch the killer before the body counts continue to rise .
This story is action packed , intense , suspenseful and heartbreaking . An all out fabulous story with fantastic characters .
I highly recommend taking the time to read and enjoy .

In my mind Mary Burton can do no wrong. She has very quickly become one of my all time favorite romantic suspense authors. My only complaint with this book is that I felt like the romance between the two characters wasn't developed as much as it could have been. It seemed like it went from great colleagues to hey, we are going to get it on. There wasn't a lot of build up to it. I did love that this book was nice and long, it was meaty and I really got to delve into it and sit with the characters and the mystery for a long length of time.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is my first Mary Burton novel. From what I was able to see, she has a strong following and is known for her thrillers.
This story was more of a romantic thriller and its a genre I could never get into. I enjoyed the thriller aspect of it and I really admired the character of Melina Shepard (although I kept picturing Jodi Foster in my head as her!) She was a strong character but then I hated the romantic angle that took place. I would have enjoyed the story so much better without that.

Oh I loved this serial killer ;) He was intriguing and different from many in ways...the characters are perfect. a little stoic, a little damaged, a little lovable ;) I do hope there are more books with some of these characters as I"d like to delve into them further!

You don’t need to have read the previous book in this series to understand ‘Never Look Back’, I’ve found each book to be kind of stand alone with the main theme running through the books is the FBI Behavioral Unit and its profilers.
‘Never Look Back’ focuses on the Behavioural Unit’s leader Jerrod Ramsey, who heads to Tennessee to try and track down an illusive ‘key killer’ serial killer who’s been operating for years. There he teams up with Agent Melina Shepard of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, who has just survived a brush with the serial killer.
While investigating the serial killer, Jerrod and Melina also get caught up with the case of a little girl found abandoned in a car crash. Much to their surprise they discover they have stumbled upon the workings of another serial killer, one connected to the little girl and to Melina’s own past.
I’ve found Mary Burton always provides a good read. And this time was no different. I wasn’t too sure how the storyline of two serial killers would play out. It sounded a bit too much in the beginning, but i thought it worked for the most part. My only complaint is that one killer got a little more character development than the other, which I thought was a shame, as both killers had very different motives for what they did.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It kept me guessing until the very end. The characters were well developed, the storyline was interesting and it had just the right amount of romance and suspense for me. 4 stars.

This was my first Mary Burton book- and it won’t be my last!!!

The book follows Melina Shepard, an agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, as she tracks a serial killer with the help of FBI agent Jarrod Ramsey. Combined with the serial killer investigation is another mystery involving a young girl abandoned in a car.

As with many mysteries, I’m hesitant to say much more for fear of spoilers, but this was a really good read.

The very beginning of the book intrigued me immediately and once I got a feel for the two main characters and the mysteries they were working on, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough to find out what happened next. As things began to unravel, the pace picked up and I couldn’t stop reading until I found out what was going on.

This book was a good balance of mystery and some romantic tension. I found both characters intriguing, and especially liked the strong female agent.

If you enjoy shoes like Criminal Minds, this is a perfect read for you- fast paced with twists and turns that I didn’t expect.

I’m pleased to see that Mary Burton has a pretty extensive backlist, and I’m happy to say she has now gained another fan. A really good read, and a really good author.


Thank you to Montlake Romance and Netgalley for the review copy!!!!

Mary Burton’s ‘Never Look Back’ is a romantic suspense novel that is heavier on the suspense than it is on the romance.

After Agent Melina Shepard narrowly avoids becoming the victim of a serial killer, her boss at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation decides to call in the FBI. Agent Jerrod Ramsey has made a career out of catching the worst of the worst serial killers, and the so-called “Key Killer” is on the top of his list. As Melina and Jerrod work with each other to discover the truth, they’ll inadvertently intersect with another killer, who just may have ties to Melina as well. And they’ll have to decide whether or not they act on the blossoming attraction they feel toward each other.

Burton creates a complicated narrative that encapsulates the acts of two serial killers, Melina’s rediscovery of her past, plus a budding relationship between Melina and Jerrod. I think the plot is more successful in its suspenseful moments, though Burton does create some good moments of chemistry between the two lead protagonists. While I mostly enjoyed the plot, I did think that it intersected a little too conveniently, and was tied up a little too neatly. However, it definitely ticks the boxes of a romantic suspense novel, in that there’s a happily ever after waiting for you at the end.

If romantic suspense is your thing, you will definitely enjoy ‘Never Look Back.’

**Thanks to NetGalley and Montlake Romance for providing me with an ARC of ‘Never Look Back’ in exchange for my honest review.**

Another great thriller by Mary Burton! You will be hooked from the first page and will not be able to put it down until the last. Loved the characters, loved the plot and loved the quick pace of this thriller. Definitely recommend!

2.5* Not a bad police procedural, but with the most 'dead from the waist down' sex scene I've ever read. Why include it???

This is an OK tale that actually has more than one bit of mystery running in it at the same time. It was simply done, without any (at times needed) obfuscation and I wasn't confused, a little disappointingly so. I hadn't realised that this is either a standalone or a first tale in a series, and I liked the coincidence with the Bonnie character, which lead to the female lead, Melina, learning more about her past.

Parts of it felt like they needed a good weeding and edit, and I know I got an ARC, but this book needs a good proofing because there were mistakes/wrong words used that took me out of the tale whilst I tried to fathom things. The storyline itself was good and I liked how determined and focused Melina was, though as a person, I thought that she was stone cold. Yes, she'd been abandoned as a child and even before then, I doubt her childhood had been a happy one, but she'd come into a loving family and home and still had a decent relationship with her parents, but there wasn't an iota of emotion in her. She came across as married to the job and without having any other interest.

At 80% of the tale gone, the author decided to include the sex scene that I mentioned. Why???? It added nothing to the tale, didn't connect the leads who hadn't shown a hint of liking or any kind of attraction, or even on-page professional admiration up until that point. In fact, during the narration of the sex scene, the author mentioned that it was Melina taking what she needed and not doing anything for Jerrod (I think his first name was only ever used whilst introducing him to newcomers to the tale), and that just seemed to corroborate how cold she was. Yes, she cared for the little girl in the tale, but there was zero attraction between the leads. Tbh, Jerrod almost didn't impact on me at all - he wasn't developed enough and didn't come across as lead material, and certainly there was no evidence of the FBI hotshot he supposedly was.

I was rather uncomfortable at the point in the tale where the bad guy demanded Melina strip, supposedly to check she's not wired. It wasn't done in the best of taste, and I think she was upping the ante by playing with herself to distract him, but seriously, it felt voyeuristic and not really needed and I didn't believe the bad guy would fall for it, as he'd been a pretty clever guy so far. She could have been more clinical or taunted him more verbally, but nope, she gave him a show, in front of a traumatised 5/6yo. Not the best addition to this tale, and not really believable.

At the end, supposedly the leads can't be without each other. Yeah, right, sorry, not in my book, pun intentional. With respect, I think that this tale needs tweaking, as I have hardly ever not engaged with characters as I did with these two. It feels like Mary Burton is trying to emulate Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliott, other Montlake authors who deliver pretty solid tales, but pales in comparison. I suspect this tale has appeared on NetGalley a whole 6 months before publication to gauge feedback. It should not come under the genre of General Fiction, Romance, as it's more police procedural without romance.

ARC courtesy of Montlake Romance and NetGalley, for my reading pleasure.

Mary Burton is my go to author for suspense. I love all the twists and turns she creates within the plot lines in her books. Never Look Back is a prime example of her talent! Kept me on the edge of my seat until the end. Thanks to NetGalley and the author Mary Burton along with her publisher for letting me read an advanced copy of Never Look Back!