Clean Break by Abby Vegas

I have received a free advance PDF copy of the book “Clean Break” by Abby Vegas to review. This is Abby’s second book but her first novel. To find out more about the author you may visit her website.

Here is the book blurb.

Lane Haviland can’t seem to catch a break. She’s dead broke, barely functioning as an adult, and completely alone in New York City. Her so-called “apartment” is a six-by-nine cell in a Brooklyn basement. And her new boss hasn’t ever met a personal or professional boundary she can’t bulldoze through.

Still, Lane’s determined to at least attempt to claw her way back to respectability. But she can’t seem to get her mysterious handyman, Viktor, out of her apartment – or her headspace. Maybe that’s a good thing: Viktor’s easy on the eyes, and that deep-voiced Russian accent is beyond sexy. But as he and Lane grow closer, he can no longer hide his connections with a dangerous criminal underworld – where secrets can be deadly.

The book begins with Lane already down on her luck, being scammed out of the $800 deposit  for renting an apartment room. She had borrowed the money from her boss Randy and when she reports it to Detective Mike Jarrett, he advises her that the only way she will get her money back is if the bank refund it. That would be a minimum of 60 days, so Lane’s options are pretty limited.

Lane takes the only accommodation available, a tiny unfurnished basement flat. The agent sends a couple of Russian handymen, Viktor and Sergey to reconnect the water. With her only income via her part-time work for Randy, Lane manages to land another part-time role as PA to Cynthia. But at only $15 / hour, it is still far from enough to pay the rent. However she is in for a surprise when she goes to tell the agent she can’t afford to pay. A month’s rent has mysteriously been paid by Viktor.

These first few chapters were enough to have me gripped by the storyline. I didn’t want to put it down. I don’t want to say anything which might spoil it for you, but Abby has done a fantastic job of bringing the characters to life. And there is a real twist towards the end of the book.

There were all the little things of how to deal with situations when Lane has no money and only 2 suitcases of possessions. Like although she now has a basic phone, she kept her old cracked smartphone which can’t hold charge, just to use to access free WiFi to find the job opportunities. And only being able to offer tap water to drink and in a disposable beaker too. It all gave such a depth to conveying the story.

I did have to look up one word – sable. This was in the context of a cream cheese and smoked sable bagel. I initially guessed salmon and I wasn’t too far off. Sable is a fish, namely black cod. Not something we get here in the UK. All our cod is white and it is never smoked. Sounds tasty, so if I ever get a trip to the US, that will be on my list to try.

Clean Break willl be published on May 16th and is available to pre-order on Amazon, currently priced at £2.08 on Kindle. I loved it and highly recommend it, Looking forward to Abby’s next novel.

You can find Abby Vegas on Twitter here.

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Disclosure.  This post is a review of an e-book I was sent for free.  All opinions are my own.