Review of Running in Fear: Escaped by Trinity Blacio

Trinity Blacio
Running in Fear: Escaped
Ravenous Romance, 2010

Backblurb:
Jaycee Manz has been on the run since her sixteenth birthday. After growing up fast and depending on no one, how is she supposed to handle three male werewolves who claim to be her mates? Can she learn to trust them or will she continue to run?
Dane Glassgo, alpha of his clan and a special ops commander, specializes in tracking. He's waited for the past two years to claim his mate. Nothing or no one will stop him from claiming Jaycee, not even her fear...
Pierre LeBlathe, brother to Remi and bonded mate to Dane Glassgo, knows his time is limited with Jaycee. But he is bound and determined to stop anyone from hurting her...
Mark Glassgo shares alpha duties with his elder brother, but when Dane finds his mate, Jaycee, he is shocked to learn she is also his mate. What he didn't count on was that he was also mate to Remi LeBlathe...
Alpha Remi LeBlathe, one of the most powerful weres in the country, has always protected what is his. When Jaycee comes into his life, mayhem erupts around them, but Remi is used to mayhem and uses it to his benefit. In seeking those who would harm his mate, Remi must learn how to listen to Jaycee's needs and desires...
Together, all four try to find peace, and the most powerful alphas in the U.S., Remi, Dane and Mark , declare war on anyone who stands in their way of claiming their runaway mate. But can the independent Jaycee be claimed?
In this sizzling werewolf menage story, love, lust and power take center stage in the struggle for ultimate survival.

Genre & Keywords:
M/F/M/M, Ménage, BDSM, Paranormal, Werewolves

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Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Heat level: 2 out of 3 flames
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Why I read it:
I received a review copy from the author

When I started reading this book it had been on my to-be-reviewed-shelf for a while and I initially forgot to look up the backblurb and just jumped in, since it was time that I finally got to it.
In the first paragraph we meet Dane, alpha leader of his pack, who is worrying about his mate, or to be more precise, the woman he's going to claim as his mate, Jaycee. Shortly after, Jaycee is introduced, as a woman who's severely abused by her ex-husband. And then the hero and heroine meet each other. They instantly mate and Jaycee's 'running in fear' starts, because her ex-husband is after her. Dane wants to protect her, but she thinks she can handle it on her own and runs from him.

After this opening of the story I started to fear for a heroine with TSTL tendencies and I was wondering about the background of Dane's pack and their mating that already happened so early in the book. So, I looked up the backblurb and discovered I was in for a few more mates for Jaycee. I didn't find out more about the background, since it wasn’t mentioned in the backblurb, but I kept reading and was soon introduced to Marc and Pierre, Jaycee's other mates.
Meanwhile quite some sex scenes had taken place, with lots of graphic descriptions but lack of an emotional level. Jaycee also got dressed up to play a role as a submissive to deceive her ex, James, and his friends at some club. That was the plan. Except, this story thread never returned in the rest of the book. And to be honest, it rang false to me that Jaycee was trained as a submissive like she stated, because she acts anything but submissive.
At this point we're not even 20% into the book and already I have quite some reservations.

And it doesn't get better. More and more I feel like I'm reading a rather inconsistent story with cardboard characters that are playing out a not very believable script, like they are actors in a cheap pron movie. We're tumbling from one event into the next one and it all feels like a bit too much and too spur of the moment. Additionally, none of the protagonists are very likable characters. My fear regarding the heroine turned out to be true, her actions don't make much sense, often she's contradicting herself and I just couldn't like her.

But despite the awkward flow of the plot, the unlikely events and the flat characters I kept reading, hoping for a satisfying romantic story arc. To no purpose! There's no romantic development whatsoever, just a few rather rough sex scenes without any insight in the protags' feelings or thoughts. And to top it all off, the book ends with an unexpected 'To Be Continued' in the middle of a 'relationship problem'. Not a hint of a Happy For Now or Happy Ever After ending. Very frustrating! How could an editor/publisher let this happen?
And to be honest, I don’t think I’ll pick up the sequel because I actually won't believe in a HEA anymore - after the way the fourth (!) mate was introduced things seem pretty irreparable. At least for me.
Overall, I'm rather disappointed in this book and I have to think twice if I'll read the sequel any time soon, if at all.

Linking:
Trinity Blacio’s website | weblog | on Goodreads

Buy Running in Fear here

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