It’s summer time and most of my friends and family in Ohio are beginning to plan trips to their favorite theme parks. Whether they be our childhood favorites of Paramount King’s Island and Cedar Point, or a little closer to where I live now with Busch Gardens Tampa and Disney World, the families are planning to check out the newest attractions. Among all the theme parks I’ve been to, the ones with all the roller coasters, like Cedar Point, are definitely my favorite. The twists, turns loops and flips keep me guessing what’s coming next and one unpredictable ride leads to another.

Mike Wells has created a theme park of literature. His works always had the element of surprise in which you believe you’re getting close to a resolution, just to discover another issues lies right around the corner. It’s never what it seems and the perception of a character can change on a dime depending on what information they have access to.

Mike Well’s newest attraction is the suspense thriller Passion, Power & Sin releases earlier this spring. Once again Well’s leading character is a female force to be reckoned with and the 5 book series is mercifully long-lasting and action-packed.

The story begins with Heather Bancroft, a young publications professional working in New York City. Right out of college, she’s at the bottom of the PR totem pole and is paying her dues by also playing personal assistant to her two pushy bosses at a prestigious PR firm.

Heather is in financial trouble as her job pays her pennies and her mom is facing foreclosure thanks to the premature death of her husband, Heather’s father. So when Heather begins receiving anonymous emails from “Your Friend in Need” in which correct predictions are being made on events that can be gambled on, she cannot believe her luck.

Placing small bets at first Heather is sucked into a gambling scheme as she travels to faraway places like Tokyo, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey where she risks her life to collect her winning. Finally, she takes one last gamble and, after losing it all, she realizes that it was all a scam set up to win her big bucks so she could gamble it all away in the end.

Heather learns that her schemer is an eccentric millionaire who spends his time sailing the French Riviera with his superyacht of playmates. With a little enhancement and a quick lesson in chess, Heather finds herself being invited to cruise the Riviera with Maya, her adversary, playing host.

Once Heather heads out to sea with Maya she must make a decision. Does she continue with her own scheme to win back her money and that of another victim she has befriended? Or does she keep up the rouse on the boat so she can continue to live in luxury outside of responsibilities and struggles.

I give this read 5 stars. If it wasn’t for my job I may have finished all 5 books within one week. Each time I needed to stop in order to go to work, eat a meal or take care of a responsibility, I was disappointed that I had to put it down. It was literally a roller coaster ride of Heather getting the upper hand, Maya taking it back and the perfect boyfriend gone bad to the stranger hunting down his true love. Best of all, Wells tends to give away the first book in his series for free – so check on Amazon to see if this offer is being extended on his newest attraction as well.

Do you enjoy books that take you on wild ride or do you tend to get lost in the storyline?