Just go with your gut | a No Limits review
5:30 AM
Title // No Limits
Author // Ellie Marney
Publication Date // August, 2017
Publisher // Bearded Lady Press
Genre // #LoveOzYA, Crime
Rating // ✭✭✭✭✭
Boozer, brawler, ladies’ man – nineteen-year-old Harris Derwent is not a good guy.
His one attempt to play the hero – helping out his old flame, Rachel Watts – has landed him in hospital. Now injured, broke, and unemployed, he’s stuck back in the country, at his father’s mercy. Harris needs to pay off his dad’s debts, and fast. But working as a runner for a drug cartel is a dangerous path – especially if Harris agrees to narc…
Eighteen-year-old Amita Blunt is the perfect police sergeant’s daughter – practical, trustworthy, and oh-so responsible. Getting involved in Harris’s case was never part of the plan. But working at the hospital, she’s invisible – which makes her the ideal contact for a boy feeding information back to the police…
Harris and Amie’s connection is sizzling hot – but if the cartel finds out about them, things could get downright explosive. Backed into a corner, with everything at stake, it’s time for Harris and Amie to find out if love really has no limits…
No Limits blew me away.
I don’t say that lightly; I’ve read a lot of books that I’ve adored this year, and this is right up there at the top of the list because it encompasses so many things that I appreciate in books that I read: there’s a hell of a lot of character development, the suspense is on from the moment you start reading, and it’s Aussie as all get-out.
Harris Derwent is recovering from being shot in the leg at the end of Every Move (the third book in the Every series) and during his stay in hospital he encounters Amita Blunt, the daughter of the local police sergeant and current hospital employee. The two strike up an unlikely compromise for the sake of Harris’ recovery, which goes beyond what either originally intended. Amie and Harris’ relationship develops from there, being put to the test when Harris decides to take up a position as a drug cartel runner in order to gather intel for the police.
Harris is an incredible character; when we first met him in Every Move he was a bit of larrikin, in love with Rachel Watts and trying to make it in Melbourne. His injuries see him back home and having to deal with an abusive father and his debts. He’s almost at rock bottom, but there’s a determination to him that drives him to try and make a difference. Amie, by contrast, lives a good life - she’s devoted to her family to the point of putting all her dreams on hold. When she meets Harris, she sees beyond the town’s expectations of him and identifies the strength and kindness and determination to do good that underpins his character. Their chemistry is fantastic and part of the suspense of the book is the will they/won’t they elements of their relationship.
I’ve read a lot of crime novels in my time and it’s genre I genuinely enjoy; there’s a formula that, when done right, throws twists and turns at you that you never see coming and No Limits does that. I also had a personal connection to the places in this book - while I’m not a country girl, I spent some time in my childhood in rural Victoria so the locations were familiar and wonderfully accurate. The Aussie language in the book also sold it; there’s an authenticity to the place that you can’t get without it.
Harris and Amie leapt off the page; they seemed so real, like people I’ve met before and for me, there’s nothing better. I’m so glad that Ellie Marney self-published No Limits because this is a book that I will be revisiting over and over, for sure.
5 out of 5 stars.
You can pick up a copy of No Limits on Amazon.
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