72 Hours by Bella Jewel
Romantic Suspense
Released: April 4, 2017
St. Martin’s

Reviewed by Mandi

I read the blurb of this book and I was immediately intrigued:

A FATE WORSE THAN DEATH.
It’s all part of his sick game. A game he’s been planning for an entire decade. Now everything is perfect: One woman and one man have been selected. They used to be a couple—and they can no longer stand one another. They are the perfect victims. He doesn’t intend for the game to be easy. He wants to push them to the brink of insanity, to make his hunt real. . .

A DESIRE WORTH FIGHTING FOR. . .
The couple has been captured and dumped into a massive wooded area. There’s only one rule in this fatal game: They will have 72 hours to find a way out before the sadistic serial killer begins his hunt . . .But what he never could have expected was the explosive passion that ignites between the two ex-lovers—one that makes them strong. Fierce. And determined to do whatever it takes to escape—and to survive. . .

I love really dark romantic suspense and this sounded right up my alley. Ex-lovers reunited?? Hunted in a dark forest?? Gimme. But this book was so, so disappointing, I don’t even know where to start. I will put it in list form:

–Description: Lara and Noah are drugged and taken to a forest where they are told by a note that they have 72 hours to escape before they will be hunted and killed. But what does this forest look like? We are told Noah walked for miles when they first awoke but couldn’t find a way out. But the author never really gives us a good description of where they are. I had a very hard time picturing it in my head, which makes it hard to read a story. Especially when the setting is so important.  The first two days are very rushed as well. The author gets us to the third day very fast, and that felt odd to me.

–Injuries: Over the course of their time in the forest, Lara falls out of a tree, Noah is shot and has other bad things happen. And while Noah gets a fever due to being shot in the leg, he is STILL running around the forest. He climbs a tree. He dives into a river and swims. He fights off the bad guy, twice. HUH? I get that adrenaline will make your body stretch its limits and yes, I’ve never been shot and left in a forest so I can’t compare this to real life, but I truly don’t think Noah could be as mobile as he was in this book. There is no way. It’s one thing to survive a day like this but more than that, with so much physical exertion didn’t make sense.

–Being Dumb: Late in the book Noah hits the bad guy on the back of a head with a rock:

“He made a mistake turning to hurt you. I used the rock and hit him over the back of the head just before he turned around once you’d disappeared. Dazed him for a good few minutes. I got a head start. I found a track to the deeper water. I dove in, came out the other side, and went up a tree. By the time he got to me, he couldn’t find me.”

The bad guy was dazed for a few minutes – why didn’t he hit him again, and again until the dude’s skull was crushed in??? This bad guy promises to kill them – promises to mutilate and torture them. So you bash him once and run??? DUDE. And to make it worse, shortly after this, Noah bashes him on the head AGAIN with a rock and AGAIN flees.  At this point, wouldn’t the bad guy have a concussion?? Bashed twice in the head in one day with rocks – and he is still running around trying to kill these two?

Something else really dumb: Noah manages to steal the bad guy’s motorbike – but does he ride it until he finds a way out or runs out of gas?? NO.

I kept reading because I wanted to know where they actually were and while I assumed they would end up killing the bad guy and I wanted to see how they would actually escape this never-ending forest. And you know how they escape????

Spoiler:

Sorry for the ranting but I feel better now.

Grade: D-

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