Review: "If I Say No" by Brandy Jellum (Say Something #2)

Note: This ebook was provided by Good Tales Book Tours in exchange for an honest review.

Reid Harder is on the lookout for his older brother Rhett. After keeping tabs on him, he went off the grid several months ago and it took one threatening phone call from him to get Reid looking over his shoulder. Rhett wants payback and Reid knows that his brother will do what it takes, even hurting those who mean the most to Reid, to get it. But as he tries to protect his fiancée Liza Winter from Rhett, Reid's past catches up with him in a way he never saw coming and it's going to cost him more than he ever anticipated.

If I Say No is the sequel to Brandy Jellum's If I Say Yes and is the second book in the Say Something series. This picks up a few months after the events of the first book. I do recommend that you read the books in order because book one ends in a cliffhanger and book two will make more sense if read in conjunction with its predecessor. Most of the memorable characters from If I Say Yes return here and there are quite a few new ones introduced here, including members of Reid's immediate family.

I quite enjoyed this book as compared to the first one and it may have to do with the storytelling going in a clearer direction. This was really about Reid and his past and how it's now affecting his present and foreseeable future. I'm not sure if I like him more here because I certainly didn't agree with a lot of his choices with regards to his handling of the situation with Rhett and his own relationship with Liza. I also couldn't help but wonder if he was being truly honest with his actual feelings with her and Lily.

As with the first book, there are a number of twists in the story and I did figure out the ones that had to do with his family but it was still interesting to see how everything unraveled and how Reid and Liza reacted to the revelations. I certainly liked Liza more here than in book one because I felt that her reactions to Reid's actions and secrecy were realistic instead of romanticized. I still felt bad for Elias "Eli" Caraway, Liza's best friend, because he simply had more sense and made better choices than Reid. *shrug*

With as far as the suspense thriller aspect is concerned, both books in the series did well in creating the tension I look for when it comes to puzzles that need to be figured out and in anticipating what's going to happen next and when it's all going to go down. The romance aspect was okay for books one and two but I did feel that Reid and Liza worked out better here than in the previous novel and maybe it was because their relationship was truly put to the test here. I'm giving If I Say No four stars out of five. ♥

Date Read: 15 April 2015

Learn more about Brandy Jellum here.

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