Series spotlight: Brand of Justice Series by Lisa Phillips

I just read the newest book in this series 4 days ago, Fear No Evil, the 9th book in this amazing series. I decided then that I was going to feature the series on my blog because I was so impressed with that book.

There is a chat I am in on the Discord app that the author and a handful of other authors are in along with several readers like me. We were discussing the series, when someone said something that caught my eye. The 10th book is coming out in January - which I knew - but I didn't know I could get a hold of an advance e-book copy of it. Now. I was already having those "I can't wait to read it" feelings about it, so I dove on it. And that is what I have been doing a lot of today....reading Out of Time, #10 in this series. And man. I thought #9 was good. #10 was even better than it. 

A little about the series...which I wasn't sure I'd like when I started it. I was wrong. 😀 

  The main character for the whole series is McKenna (Kenna) Bradbury. Before the series started, she was an FBI agent. She and her male FBI partner/boyfriend had been caught by a bad guy. The bad guy, among other injuries, sliced the tendons in her wrists, then stabbed her boyfriend/partner mortally (I think it was stabbing...it has been a while since I read the first book), and she had to lie there and watch him die, unable to help him. She lost the baby she was carrying, and had to leave the FBI. 

 Now she is a private investigator who travels all over in her RV solving crimes. Her injuries to her arms do hinder her occasionally, but she gets around and accomplishes a lot.

 A couple of things different in this series from most Christian suspense:

1) The same main character is the main character in every book. (I think there will be 16 books).

2) There is little romance in most of the series. At one point - book 2 or 3 I think - she and FBI Special Agent in Charge Oliver Jackson (Jax) become a thing, but he makes very brief appearances in most of the books. In #8 Dead to Rights, She and Jax go undercover as a married couple, so he is in most of the book. In a previous book, they are abducted together. In book #9, he makes an appearance in the last few pages, and the author did something she may regret (slight spoiler)- he mentioned going to the courthouse. Now we in the chat are bugging her to have them get married before the end of the series. :) (Marriage came into question at the end of book #10 also, so who knows......) :) Jax was also in a lot of book #10. That book takes place mostly in England. 

  Kenna does gather a family of sorts. Her retired former boss from the FBI helps her a lot, and a few other "strays" she picks up along the way.

 The cool thing about a series like this: The author has so much more time to develop the characters and mature and change them as they have different experiences throughout the series, instead of everything being crammed into one book. Even  the relationship between Jax and Kenna has been a slow burn, instead of meet, fall in love, and being married at the end of the book. I mean here we are in book #10 - well it isn't out til January - but Jax has finally........(You think I am going to say?)

The series began in August 2022 with Cold Dead Night. Here we are two years and three months later with book #9 just having released, and book #10 coming in January. And the series has only gotten better with each new book. I thought the 9th one was the best, then I read the 10th book 4 days later, and man. I cannot wait to see what is coming in book #11, whenever that happens. Maybe a wedding.....

About the author:

Lisa Phillips is a USA Today and top ten Publishers Weekly bestselling author of over 80 books that span Harlequin’s Love Inspired Suspense line, independently published series romantic suspense, and thriller novels. She’s discovered a penchant for high-stakes stories of mayhem and disaster where you can find made-for-each-other love that always ends in happily ever after.

Lisa is a British ex-pat who grew up an hour outside of London and attended Calvary Chapel Bible College, where she met her husband. He’s from California, but nobody’s perfect. It wasn’t until her Bible College graduation that she figured out she was a writer (someone told her). Lisa is a worship leader, tea aficionado, and dog lover of two crazy Airedales.

Check out her website at AuthorLisaPhillips.com It is pretty cool...it has character list with short bios, and what books they appear in.