Beyond the Chase by Brittney Sahin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When your whole world disappears, where do you turn?

Ava Daniels’ lab has been wiped clean.

Everything is missing, including her boss and the formula for the dangerous chemical substance they had just discovered.

The major problem? No one was supposed to know her lab even existed. And now Ava is the main suspect in the crime.

Ava needs answers, and she’s utterly alone. Her search for her boss leads her to former Marine Aiden O’Connor, a Boston pub owner with a sexy Irish accent. But can she trust a man with more secrets than her own?

Aiden opened his pub to put the past behind him. But when Ava shows up demanding help, he realizes this brilliant woman might be the key to his own retribution. Aiden finds himself pulled back into a world of intrigue and danger, where he can’t tell his enemies from his friends.

Together, the beautiful biochemist and Irish bar owner go on the run, both seeking salvation–neither expecting that the other is the secret to unlocking their heart.

Beyond the Chase

Mystery and Intrigue galore!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚💜💙❤️
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪🧪
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😋🙂🙃😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Ava Daniels – she has an identical twin sister who is a famous underwear model and Ava is often misalign for her sister. She is a biochemical engineer who has been working on a secret project for a while and one day, she goes in to work to find her lab has been cleared out and her boss, Henry Davidson is missing, along with the formula she had been working on. She had trained for a situation like this but couldn’t for the life of her remember what the protocol was. She attempted to call the three other people that worked in the lab, and nobody was answering their phones. She jumped into her car and drove to Henry’s place, and he wasn’t there either.

The Hero: Aiden O’Connor – he is the owner of an Irish Pub in Boston. He is former military and was stationed in Afghanistan. Like his marine brother, Michael Maddox (from the first book), he still lives with what happened there. He is Henry’s nephew but wants nothing to do with his mother Sophie or her side of the family, including Henry. Aide isn’t big on relationships and rarely lets anyone get close.

The Story: Ava goes to Homeland Security but isn’t sure she can trust the people there. The lab was in a secret location, and she signed a contract saying that she couldn’t give anyone the location of the lab, so she is wary when the director tells her to take him to the lab. Even more so, when two men in black come in and say that they are there to escort her somewhere and rush her into a big SUV. They put her in cuffs with a black bag over her head. They tell her that they did that for her own safety, but they won’t tell her what agency they are with. Then start interrogating her on what happened the previous night. She doubted they even had clearance to know about her project, so she is careful with her answers. She tells them that she hadn’t solved the equation that they were working on.

The men tell Ava that she probably isn’t in any danger, and she should consider her assignment over and they drop her back off at the Homeland Security building where her car was parked. Ava didn’t want to go to her apartment but had no one to turn to. She found two messages on her phone from coworkers who had similar experiences to her and were told to go on vacation. Ava thought it was weird that they had each left similar messages within minutes of each other and both were from unknown numbers. She looks up Henry’s relatives on the internet. She took off to Boston to search them out. Ava meets Aiden and they end up working together to find out the truth.

This setup absolutely hums with intrigue—Ava’s biotech background and her sudden plunge into a web of disappearances and shady government shadows is giving me Body of Lies meets Orphan Black vibes, while Aiden’s broody, ex-military pub owner adds just the right dose of grounded gravitas. The contrast between Ava’s logical, disciplined world and the improvisational grit of Aiden’s universe is ripe for crackling tension—and chemistry. I was on the edge of my seat for much of this book and really enjoyed both the romance and the suspense.

This audiobook was narrated from multiple perspectives, done in dual narration by Connor Crais and Ava Lucas. Connor Crais has a voice that was made to be a romantic Hero. It is so deep and sexy, I could listen to him all day. He has a great Irish accent and does a terrific job with this book. Though since his voice is so deep, his voice for the female characters isn’t the greatest. I like him in duet narration a lot more than dual. Ava Lucas also has a great voice and does a terrific job.

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