(Note: I am late with this post due to a family emergency. I notified Celebrate Lit that this would be late. Thank you for your understanding!)

About the Book

Book: Anchoring You

Author: Robin Patchen

Genre: Christian romantic suspense

Release Date: May 12, 2026

On the glittering waters of the Caribbean, a yacht captain’s fight for survival forces her to rely on a man she swore she’d never trust.

A fiercely independent yacht captain, Kenzie Wright has spent her life disregarding her family’s expectations. She thrives on freedom, charting her own course, and never staying in one place—or with one person—for long. But when a routine voyage thrusts her into the crosshairs of a deadly drug cartel, her carefully crafted agenda is blown apart. Her last hope to save herself and her crew is the partying playboy, Jaz.

DEA informant Jasper Aylett has spent years hunting the cartel leader known only as “the Phantom.” The mission has cost him everything—his family, his reputation, and his chance at redemption. When a beautiful yacht captain gets caught in the Phantom’s web, Jaz risks his life to rescue her. It’s his last chance to secure the information he needs to take his enemy down—and get his life back.

Kenzie is forced into hiding with Jaz, and now two cartels want her dead. With their lives on the line, Kenzie and Jaz must work together to unravel the Phantom’s network before it’s too late. But the closer they get to the truth—and to each other—the more their past wounds and buried fears threaten to tear them apart, leaving them vulnerable to an enemy who won’t stop until they’re both destroyed.

From a USA Today bestselling author… Don’t miss this heart-pounding suspense and swoon-worthy romance as Kenzie and Jasper discover their fight for survival—and for love—can only be won together.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Robin Patchen is a USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of Christian romantic suspense. She grew up in a small town in New Hampshire, the setting of her Coventry Saga books, and then headed to Boston to earn a journalism degree. Working in marketing, she discovered how much she loathed the nine-to-five ball and chain. After relocating to the Southwest, she started writing her first novel while homeschooling her three children. The novel was dreadful, but her passion for storytelling didn’t wane. Thankfully, as her children grew, so did her writing ability. Now that her kids are adults, she has more time to play with the lives of fictional heroes and heroines, wreaking havoc and working magic to give her characters happy endings. When she’s not writing, she’s editing or reading, proving that most of her life revolves around the twenty-six letters of the alphabet.

More from Robin

Too Far Gone? Writing a Prodigal Hero

When I started writing Anchoring You, I knew the hero was going to be a challenge.

On the surface, Jaz is everything my heroine Kenzie despises: a charming playboy who flits around the Caribbean with a different woman on his arm every week and a drink perpetually in his hand. When he tries to get to know her, she wants nothing to do with him. She’s heard the rumors. She knows exactly what kind of man he is.

Except she doesn’t know the real Jaz. Nobody does.

Underneath the polished persona, Jaz is drowning. A gambling addiction led to crushing debt, which led to a desperate deal with a dangerous man, which led to five years of living undercover as a DEA informant. He’s lost everything that matters—his money, his reputation, his relationship with his brother, Noah, and most painfully, his daughter Charlotte, whom he left with Noah to keep her safe from the criminals who control his life.

Somewhere in the midst of all that, Jaz also lost his faith.

The Prodigal Who Doesn’t Come Home

We all know the parable of the prodigal son. He squanders his inheritance, hits rock bottom, and returns to his father’s open arms.

But what happens when the prodigal believes he’s wandered too far, done too much, burned too many bridges to ever find his way back?

That’s Jaz’s life when we first meet him. He tells Kenzie at one point, “I’m not sure if I left Him or if He left me, but God and I haven’t had a relationship since I was a teenager.”

Jaz isn’t angry at God. He’s not wrestling with doubt. He’s just disconnected. Numb. He made choices that spiraled out of control. People got hurt, and somewhere along the way, he decided that men like him shouldn’t expect grace.

I think a lot of people can identify with Jaz, even if their circumstances aren’t as dramatic as his. It’s not always a crisis of faith that pulls us away from God. Sometimes it’s shame, the quiet belief that we’ve disqualified ourselves. We believe grace is real, just not for us.

A Faith That Doesn’t Preach

Kenzie could have lectured him or quoted Scripture at him. But Kenzie, a strong believer, doesn’t preach. Instead, she lives her faith, acting on what she believes. In one quiet conversation, when Jaz confesses how far he’s fallen, she offers him truth without judgment:

“There’s no such thing as too far, Jasper. Not with God.”

Kenzie’s relationship with God is evident in how she treats people, how she handles fear, how she extends grace to a man the world has written off. Kenzie’s witness begins to crack Jaz’s defenses.

Writing Broken Heroes

I’m drawn to characters who carry weight—who’ve made real mistakes with real consequences, not just minor flaws designed to make them “relatable.” Jaz gambled away half his family’s estate. He slept around. He abandoned his daughter—even if it was to protect her. He spent five years lying to everyone he met.

These aren’t small things. I didn’t want to minimize them or sweep them under the rug in the rush to make him likable.

I believe in redemption. I believe people can change—not by willpower but by the power of God.

Jaz doesn’t have a dramatic conversion moment in the middle of the action. His journey back to faith starts with prayer, the gentle testing of God in moments of crisis.

And God answered, protecting and guiding him through the most difficult time of his life. When it was over, Jaz realized God had been there all along.

That’s the heart of the prodigal story, isn’t it? The father doesn’t chase the son down the road. He doesn’t force him to come home. But when the son finally turns around, the father is already running to meet him.

Jaz spent years believing he’d gone too far. Kenzie helped him see that there is no “too far” for God.

Because if grace only works for people who haven’t messed up too badly, it’s not really grace at all.

My Impressions

“But I know God is big enough for my mess, no matter how ugly it is. Which means He’s big enough for yours too. The question isn’t whether He’ll take you back. It’s whether you’ll let Him.”

What an exciting, fast-paced romantic suspense novel Anchoring You by Robin Patchen is! We have arrived at the fourth and last daughter of Gavin Wright, in the Heroes of Maine series. Kenzie has fled her father’s overprotective cocoon tendencies and has established a yacht-running business in the Caribbean. She loves the freedom of the water, and she enjoys her Caribbean life until the day her life is upended.

Pirates attack Kenzie’s boat. Determined to protect her crew and herself, Kenzie puts on a brave front, but is rescued by an island playboy, Jaz, she had met the night before. Then the struggle begins as Jaz tries to protect her, and Kenzie strives to retain her hard-earned independence.

Kenzie discovers that Jaz’s carefully cultivated wild reputation is a front so he can work with the DEA. He has his sights on a very big fish in the ocean, indeed! But his methods require Kenzie to trust him. Kenzie has long ago decided that no man should be in charge of her future or her choices. In a world of fast living, fast guns, and the seemingly omnipresent evil bent on their death, Kenzie’s trust in Jaz is vital. But, can Kenzie relinquish control of her life to someone else?

Kenzie slowly begins to see past Jaz’s playboy persona to his deep longing for redemption. Jaz has lost everything, and is quite sure God cannot forgive the man he has become. Once upon a time Jaz had faith. But now, he’s turned too far away, done too much to ever be good enough. Kenzie gently reminds him, “Grace is a gift. Even when you don’t feel lovable, even when you think you’ve gone too far, God is right there, loving you, holding grace out to you, waiting for you to accept it.” Another time, she builds on that and challenges him to view himself and his past with more grace. “Maybe you need to quit thinking you’re smarter than God and start seeing yourself the way He sees you.”

I loved the high-action story and the romance that seems like it cannot go anywhere. Both main characters and a secondary one show significant growth in their lives as the book progresses. But what really stood out to me? It was Kenzie’s prayers. They were real, every day conversations with God. Neither super short nor long, just matter-of fact, here’s the issue, we need help. Plus, Kenzie is also an example of praying God’s Word back to Him. We know God’s Word is powerful. I loved those reminders of great prayers!

By the end of the book, I was so connected with the characters, I felt their cold, their terror, their confusion, and their astonishment as they finally figure out the surprising identity of the cartel!

Another Robin Patchen book you’ll not want to miss!

I received a copy of the book from CelebrateLit. I also bought my own copy. No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own.

Notable Quotables:

“He’d lived on the edge of a sword for so long he was starting to feel the stab, the dripping blood—his own and everyone else’s.” ( Jaz)

“She’d spent years on the water because it was the only place she felt safe. She’d built a business so she could control her own life, just to wind up a pawn in somebody else’s elaborate scheme.” ( Kenzie)

“She didn’t mind being known as Jesus’s girl. She wouldn’t mind being known as Jaz’s girl either.” ( Kenzie)

“What do you see? What can you use? Don’t just react. Think. Your greatest weapon is your mind.”- Kenzie’s dad

“She’d more than “do.” She looked…she looked like the kind of trouble that could blow up his whole life.”