Incredibooks: No One Has To Know

Once upon a time I heard someone utter the phrase “what you don’t know can kill you”. After reading “No One Has To Know: A Captive Romance” by Carin Hart, I am now under the firm belief that what you don’t know can keep you alive, even if in the not so healthiest of ways.

No One Has To Know by Carin Hart chronicles the journey of two people, Angela and Mason, brought together by what looks like a manufactured fate, but in time it seems as if their circumstances may have been legitimate. Mason is a police officer who knows Angela from around the way. They seem very cordial on the surface until we come to find out that Mason has been stalking Angela and seeks to take her captive and force her into a romantic relationship with him.

The key element that really drives this story is understanding the two main characters and their individual brokeness that intertwines their fate. Mason on the surface seems like a dutiful, but corrupt police officer. In the first few chapters of the story I saw his character as a traumatized nobody or face in the crowd from way back who was bitter for the way he was treated and decided to pursue a life as a megalomaniac to exercise the power he never had in his youth and our female lead Angela was the target to which he was gonna direct his power craze.

On the surface Angela seemed like a dismissive avoidant loner who didn’t keep contact with a lot of people a desired to just be introverted wanting nothing and no one around, but the sweet sound of nothingness known as solitude. This belief is further backed up by the details of her past which was marred by trauma that she was unable to escape. When she gets taken captive by Mason it definitely seems like she’s in a situation she shouldn’t and doesn’t want to be in and though this is true enough on the surface, things start to change as she spends more and more time with officer Mason.

What makes this story so incredible is everything you think you know, you actually don’t. I swear I thought I had the drop on both of these characters, but I didn’t. The dynamic between the two is very complex. They both are in an uncomfortable struggle, which is a battle for control. While a battle for control is nothing new on planet earth, we slowly start to learn that there are genuine feelings of care and compassion on both Angels and Mason’s parts. Though genuine concern is there, selfish ambition still lurks in the background, keeping the relationship between the two characters rocky at best.

The dynamic definitely takes a dramatic twist as the two become conscious of the power struggle in the balance and each fight to overpower the other person, not with brute force, but with intimacy and affection. The good and the bad times of both of the character’s part plays the biggest role in shaping this outcome. Lust and seduction are of course part of the main ingredients binding Mason and Angela together.

Author Carin Hart did an amazing job with this story. I truly enjoyed this story because it really kept me on edge in anticipation for what was going to happen next. I even had moments when I had to stop reading and let it all sink in because I didn’t want the story to end and I was anxiously making my own predictions for how I thought the story was going to conclude. I’m glad to say that the ending surpassed my expectations. If you’re into captive romance stories you’ll definitely want to read No One Has To Know by Carin Hart.