Maya Banks is an author I’ve been looking forward to reading as romantic suspense is suddenly becoming something of which I can’t get enough. While there are aspects of No Place to Run that I enjoyed, I wasn’t completely satisfied.

As part of an undercover mission in Mexico to take down a notorious arms dealer, Sam Kelly falls into an easy, hot relationship with Sophie Lundgren, a local waitress. When a break in the investigation pulls him away, he leaves Mexico unsure of where things stand in regards to Sophie. However, when she shows up five months later half-dead and pregnant, he wants answers as much as he wants to protect her and the unborn child that’s possibly his.

When Sophie first meets Sam, he was the impetus to make drastic changes to her life – like freeing herself from her controlling and murderous father. After she breaks free and steals something extremely valuable and important to the family business, she flees for her life and is pursued relentlessly until she seeks out Sam’s help – thus endangering him and his family.

Although Sam’s angry with Sophie for leaving Mexico without word and keeping news of his baby from him, he’s committed to protecting her and ending her family’s claim on her. However, he knows she’s still withholding information and he can’t bring himself to trust her. On the other hand, she fears how Sam will respond to the complete truth.

One of the biggest problems I had with the story occurs near the beginning when Sam and Sophie are reunited. Sam is basically angry at Sophie for not remaining in Mexico when he goes back there for her after he’s decides he wants to be in his life. He’s angry with her after he left with no promises after having unprotected sex. Though this isn’t a significant plot point, it was one that was enough to make me put the book down for a while and gripe about angry alpha heroes. After I picked it back up again, I got over it and begin to appreciate his care and protection of the heroine. I also enjoyed the fact that Sophie is readily accepted by Sam’s extremely large family and that they are all eager to join forces and work together. At the same time however, some of the dialogue between the various characters and Sophie crossed the line into sappy territory and was almost too sweet to swallow. I could never imagine some of these same conversations between me and my own brother-in-law. Laughable even.

I also felt the characters and plot lacked depth. Sophie’s character was much more developed than Sam’s but, sadly enough, I found her TSTL at times as well as just plain defiant. Also, keeping secrets annoys me and I couldn’t see why putting the entire truth out on the table could hurt her situation or the plot for that matter. Sam’s character, on the other hand, appealed to me because of his protective nature, but he is overbearing all too often. Plus, the action and fast pacing prevented the one on one time for the romance I need in a romance novel. Other than the steamy sex and the baby, I’m not sure why they wanted to even be together.

On a positive note, I liked the basic story that Mrs. Banks tells; threatened heroine protected by the hero and his family while fighting the bad guys. And the steamy bits were defiantly hot.

Though No Where to Run didn’t work for me on all levels, it’s a decent read. I’m not ready to give up on Ms. Banks. I’ll just keep hoping for the depth to go along with her action packed adventures.