I had been looking forward to reading this book. It looked different from most of the romance offerings and I enjoy different. I also enjoy action and intrigue, so I figured a book that has “intrigue” in the subtitle should be right up my alley.

I’m always nervous about giving away too much about a book when I review it so I tend to stick to how a book made me feel and how well I connect with the characters and, of course, the technical writing aspects. What I’m going to do for this one is to copy the blurb from Bella for you and then I’m going to go on from there. Sound good? Good.

All Rennie Vogel wants is to serve her country. Rennie has devoted her life and body to training as an FBI counterterrorism operative. The brutal pace has slowly stripped away her private life until only the most fleeting contacts with other women are possible. When her ambition of being the first woman ever considered to join CT3 is finally realized, she pushes herself to the limit to earn the position. When one disaster after another befalls her, Rennie finds herself abandoned. Only then does she begin to unravel the misdirection and deceit that surrounds their first assignment, and to wonder if her failure, not her success, was part of the plan.

Ultimately, with miles of an inhospitable landscape and an ambiguous enemy between her and safety, Rennie must decide if she can trust the one thing she never has before: another woman.

Newcomer Amy Dawson Robertson delivers a gripping story with a heroine you will be determined to cover the distance with … every step of the many miles to go.

Honestly, this description doesn’t seem to match the book that I read. Yes, Rennie wants nothing more than to serve her country and she avoids nearly all connections with women for fear of having her lesbianism found out. But it’s more than just her fear of getting caught and having her career harmed. Rennie is a loner. Really. A loner. She has no close relationships at all. Rennie is a good, honorable woman who is solely focused on being the best she can be. And she’s also got a lot of insecurities that she battles and that’s part of what makes her an interesting character.

I also didn’t see Rennie as being abandoned. She was alone, but I can’t see how she was abandoned. And I really didn’t see much of the unraveling of any misdirection nor deceit. There are mentions of these things but I didn’t see them as taking center stage. As far as the other woman she’s supposed to try to trust, all I saw was Rennie trying to keep her safe and, pretty quickly, opening herself up to the woman who shall not be named here. I really didn’t see Rennie having a problem trusting her at all.

Here’s what I saw: a well told, well written story that I truly enjoyed. I liked the gritty, bloody details of Rennie fighting against the enemy, her own agency, and herself to survive. The subplots were good and interesting and I cared as much about them as I did about Rennie. Even characters that only made brief appearances were well written and had some depth.

This is not your standard, formulaic lesbian romance. I’m not ripping on standard, formulaic lesbian romance, I enjoy them plenty, but sometimes it’s nice to read something with a strong lesbian lead character that doesn’t focus on her romantic relationship.

While the book I read didn’t resemble the one described on Bella’s site, it was a good read that kept me involved in the story from beginning to end. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would going from the blurb. I will absolutely buy the next offering from this author. Which I hope is the sequel to Miles To Go. Definitely some unanswered questions in the first one.