#TheHunted – Rosepoint Publishing

Rosepoint Reviews – January Recap – Is February a Good Month for a Romantic Getaway?

#Rosepoint Reviews - January recap

January kicked off the new year with frigid temps in NWI and appears to be continuing the trend into February. Not excited about any more snow and I might be thinking of heading south except the unusual record-breaking weather appears to be just as big a surprise there as here.

My little Frosty dog would have turned 20 on the 24^th. I still miss her so much! In the meantime, I’ve been trying to capitalize on a few of Punkin’s natural movements by training her with “down” and “gimme 5.” She performs those just fine in the office when she wants more treats. Otherwise, she acts like my words are no more than blah, blah, blah.

Unhappy surprise with Goodreads stats — ChatGPT

The first of a new year always brings the additional chores of opening new folders, adding categories, tags, checking and signing up for challenges, installing new links, and updating the menu. It’s a chore I’ve always struggled through and usually end up making irreversible mistakes: Like accidentally eliminating challenge pages.

In working on that and studying the stats, I noticed a general uptick in views the last six months of 2025 and certainly January was on a track to be my best month ever. That started a quest to figure out why—what was triggering it? I’d noticed before an email noting they had “indexed” that page. You may remember when I went on an SEO campaign last year. And no, I really didn’t understand the advantage of being indexed and didn’t subscribe to anything.

Great, but that got me started trying to figure out why or how to get indexed by Google, as I’ve labored all this time apparently without that benefit. Too late to go back to school for all this stuff and expensive to boot, it’s a big learning curve. Thought I needed a SiteMap for Google (maybe not). Now, I’m hopeful that I’ll see some real organic benefit soon, as I have little confidence in the over 23k views for the month of January and 93M views since I opened the website. While I’ll freely admit that although I started the blog in February 2012 for my grandfather’s books, it wasn’t until 2017 that I really switched into more of a read/review blog.

The CE and I reviewed a total of eleven books in January. As always, the major source of our books is the library (audiobooks as well as ebooks). We also find books in NetGalley and enjoy author and publisher requests. The links on titles are to our reviews that include purchase information.

#RosepointReviews, #JanuaryRecap,

The Bone Garden: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen (audiobook)
Worse Than a Lie by Ben Crump (CE review)
Before She Was Helen by Caroline B Cooney (audiobook)
The Widow by John Grisham (audiobook)
The Last Post by Jean Grainer
Wild by Cheryl Strayed (audiobook – bookclub)
Phoenix Rising by Michael Reit (CE review)
Heartwood by Amity Gaige
Midnight on the Potomac by Scott Ellsworth (audiobook)
The Hunted by Steven Max Russo (CE review-5 stars)
The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club by Martha Hall Kelly (audiobook)

Favorite Book of the Month

I really enjoyed The Widow by John Grisham but the CE loved The Hunted by Steven Max Russo, so this month, I’ll bow to his five-star read.

Favorite for January – The Hunted by Steven Max Russo

My Reading Challenges page…This year I’m keeping my goal for Audiobooks at Marathoner level—50 and Goodreads at 175, but changed Historical Fiction to Ancient History at 25 (though I have a good start on that with five already and reducing NetGalley to Silver–25 .

I’ve updated my Reading Challenges page to install the new 2026 goals and pushed 2025 down one. It’s still not completely right but after awhile I get tired of the struggle. Bored with the whole format, but apparently limited to this theme now unless I upgrade. You know what they say about old dogs. Woof!

You can see the challenge widgets in my sidebar and each include the links for you to sign up as well. Now’s the time!

I’m looking for romantic book suggestions for February—yes, me. Would love to see your recommendations—drop me a quick comment, please!

To all my dear readers, I do so appreciate your visits and comments and look forward to seeing your new content each day.

The Hunted by Steven Max Russo #BookReview #militarythrillers

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Ophelia Harris, a former CIA analyst who went to work for a private intelligence and security firm working in Afghanistan, has been trying hard to stay under the radar.

What seems like a lifetime ago and a world away, she disappeared from the sandbox after a raid on an insurgent money laundering operation went terribly wrong. Every operator on the team was killed save one.

Ophelia escaped. And she got away with two suitcases filled with cash.

Gerhard Mueller runs Grendel Security Group and is Ophelia’s former employer. He knows a traitor set up the ambush that killed his team and he believes he knows who that traitor is.

He wants Harris found – and he wants her dead.

Austin Medford, a former Army Ranger, is sipping a beer at an airport lounge when he runs into a woman he believes he’s seen before during his deployment overseas. A woman running from trouble.

Soon Harris and Medford find themselves being brutally hunted by forces known and unknown trying to take them off the board.

The rules of the game are simple – run, fight, or die.

His Review:

The job of a paid killer for the government has many drawbacks. One is that when you have completed your mission you are expendable.

Ophelia Harris worked in Afghanistan as an interrogator for the Central Intelligence Agency and killed one of the people she was interrogating to establish her validity. Refuse to talk and you would take all of your secrets to the grave. Once our involvement in country was completed there was a national vendetta against her.

Her boss realized that what she was doing was illegal and against US policy and punishable with death or life in prison. She was acting under his orders and he would attempt to eliminate her and do away with any threat to him. Thus’ this story illuminates the down side of working for clandestine government agencies. She moved away and established a new life after her contract with the agency was completed.

Having someone who can testify to the ruthlessness of these agencies is not in our government’s best interests. Her handler engages some of his best operatives to eliminate the threat she poses to his agency and the US government. This story will educate the reader to the underside of government service. Enjoy! 4.5 stars – CE Williams

Well developed characters and well plotted that is rooted in suspense and builds into thriller. Eye-opening and hard to put down. Many thanks to the author for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Book Details:

Genre: Military Thrillers, Murder Thrillers
ASIN: B0GDMHNDYM
Print Length: 2342 pages
Publication Date: January 1, 2026
Source: Author