Title: Monster in the Closet
Author: Karen Rose
Series: Baltimore #5
Happy Valentine’s Day, Rose fans
I’ll warn you now, I’m fangirling all over this. If you’re new to Karen Rose and want to start with this one, please, PLEASE, read Watch Your Back first, at the very least. To truly appreciate this one to its fullest extent, read Nothing to Fear, then skip to You Belong to Me and read that as well as every successive novel, even the novella. Well, I suppose the last three are a little bit optional…but not really so do yourself a favor and read them anyway.
I can only imagine the disgusted and disgruntled reviews this could get. It doesn’t stand alone, things happen too fast, TOO MUCH CRYING, etc., etc. Actually, the suspense plot does stand alone, the big bad is completely contained within this book—although I have a feeling we may see the repercussions in a future installment… Because I mean, now we HAVE to know if Cesar Tavilla goes after Thorne. Right? RIGHT? (Now that I think about it, we didn’t see J.D. warn him—though I fully trust that he did.) That plot is simply simmering with potential. But as far as I can think of, Thorne and Gwyn would be the only loose ends left in Baltimore…aside from printed evidence of Taylor and Ford’s HEA, but that’s a given. And as much as it would please me to see Thorne taking on the STs, he was only ever a minor supporting character, so I could find peace with leaving him alone.
But the drama and romances do not stand alone even a little bit—and I am 100% okay with that. In her acknowledgments at the beginning, Rose freely admits this is a valentine to all her fans—specifically, no doubt, to her most faithful disciples, which definitely includes me. More often than not, blatant fan service just irritates me, because one, it’s not-so-subtly advertising the other books in the series, and two, the authors try to sneak it in there like we won’t notice, but we totally do, and it distracts us from the current plot. But this is different, at least in my perception. The entire point of this book was to tie up some minor loose ends Rose had left dangling in other novels and provide us with a little closure on the Baltimore family. It was done intentionally and with great, great love and respect, for both us fans and the characters themselves. And I am so, so thankful for it. I swear, when I wasn’t crying, I was smiling. Often both simultaneously.
So I’m not going to overanalyze and nitpick this one, because it was a gift, and it’s unbelievably rude to criticize a gift, especially one so thoughtful and considerate.
Thank you, Karen.
Check out an interview with the author regarding this book and what’s next for her.
