Bonne Femme – AR Simmons

Format: E-Book (Kindle)
Publisher: Acorn Moon Press
Published: 19th June 2013
Series: Richard Carter Series

The Blurb
Three people. Two former soldiers, each with a mission, each waging a campaign. At the center of their conflict is a vulnerable young woman, alone and far from home.

Richard Carter has come back to Cartier trying to pull his life together, while Jill Belbenoit has come to finish her degree. He has seen her on campus, but doesn’t know her. When a former squadmate from Somalia, Mic Boyd, turns up unexpectedly and assumes a friendship that never was, Richard allows himself to fall into what he hopes will be only a brief association. The last thing he wants is a reminder of his tour in the famine-racked squalor of Africa.

Mic inserts himself into Jill’s life as well as Richard’s. As attractive women must do, she has learned to deal with unwanted male attention. Unable to disengage from one man, however, she obligates herself to the other. Now she must navigate out of both relationships. Jill reproaches herself for both her naiveté and her manipulativeness. Soon she will have much greater concerns.

Memories, dreams, and flashbacks torment Richard as he tries to discover if what he fears is real, while Jill must decide if he is only a damaged soldier suffering from PTSD, or dangerously delusional and obsessed with her.

Is his nightmare vision the product of a fevered imagination tortured by his war experience and his guilt? Or does he see what no one else can? Is he averting a horror or perpetrating one?

Where does Jill’s real danger lie? Can she trust him? Is the “godforsaken pile of rocks” called Bonne Femme a refuge from peril—or from reality?

Rating: 5/5

The Review
Thank you to the author AR Simmons for sending me a copy of Bonne Femme to read and review.

Richard Carter is an ex-marine who has taken up a new life in a town called Cartier. He decides to enrol in college and get back into a relatively normal civilian life. During his first day he meets a fellow ex-marine Mic who fought alongside him in the war. The pair form a turbulent relationship that results in Richard becoming suspicious.

I don’t really read novels of this nature (suspense and mystery) so I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting. However, Bonne Femme is absolutely amazing and words cannot express how much I loved it. I know that sounds incredibly cliched, but it’s true. Not once did I know what was going to happen and for that I am grateful, as you all know I hate predictable story lines. I was surprised with events that took place and even went ‘oh my, I didn’t know that was happening’ on several occasions.

Mic turns out to be a man you don’t want to mess with and he even scared me! He’s a clever man and uses his intellect to make people like him, but he is incredibly dangerous. He wants to control women and tries in any which way to do that, even a little torture.

I’m always fascinated with criminology and how the criminal mind works and AR Simmons has done well to keep you captivated and intrigued with the subject. It’s amazing how things happen just because of a persons actions.

One thing I did find was that I was a little nervous when reading in the night time because my mind was running away with itself and thinking ‘oh, are your doors locked?’; I do sometimes scare myself when I probably shouldn’t. Don’t take this as a negative, it just shows you how well it was written. You fell into the story and the nature of the situations.

I clearly won’t tell you the ending because I’d be a bad person, but I will say that I actually spilt my tea in shock because I generally didn’t think it would end how it did, you’ll definitely be surprised!

Bonne Femme is the first in the Richard Carter Series and no doubt I’ll be reading the second novel Cold Tears.

You can purchase Bonne Femme on Amazon UK and Amazon US.

Find out more about AR Simmons at www.bluecreeknovels.com and on Twitter at @arsimmons_rcn.