Jake Hansen is born for the life of a Navy SEAL and everything the program offers. Since joining the military at the age of 15 with a troubled heart and nerves of steel, he's been on a fast track to be the best and his name alone is a legend. While on a dangerous mission in Africa, his unit is directed to a location where a hostage, an American woman, is left for dead. This type of work is what he's trained for, but when his unit arrives to find the woman tied up and beaten half to death, Jake is unable to control his tender feelings, which leaves him shaken and confused. So Jake concentrates on what he does best; protect, evade and extract. Just when he thinks the mission and the woman are in the back of his mind, everything becomes more complicated when she shows up on his base as a civilian worker.

Isabelle Markham is restless and edgy, regardless of the fact she has everything most people only dream about; she's tops in her field as a plastic surgeon and has a fiancé who claims to love her. To escape the confines of her life, Isabelle starts spending time in Africa with the Doctors Without Borders program. She can finally be herself and break free from her political mother and her stale relationship; the exciting and exhilarating work is exactly what she needs to regroup. Then she finds all of her gained ground is lost when she's kidnapped for ransom, tied up, beaten and left to die. Her only saving grace is the men attempting to get her out of the country and her own will to not allow her fear to control her future.

HARD TO HOLD is exciting, sexy and witty with an action- packed, twisting plot. I laughed out loud, panted over the brothers and didn't stop reading until the last page forced me to do so. A great first book in the new Hard to Hold Brother series.