Tag: romance

Lust on the Rocks

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Lust on the Rocks, by Dianne Venetta, is the perfect kind of story to read on a rainy afternoon. There’s more than enough drama to keep you turning pages to see what happens next. And there is a happily ever after–but the characters do grow and change, and going on their journey with them is very satisfying.

Samantha Rockwell is the best friend of Dr. Jennifer Hamilton, whose story is told in Jennifer’s Garden (also very much worth reading!) Sam is a high-powered attorney at a prestigious law firm in Miami, and is one case away from making partner.

The case that she’s sure will make her the first female partner in the firm’s history is Perry Fitness. It’s a corporate lawsuit for major damages. Perry was negligent, and a customer died on the premises. His widow is Sam’s client.

Sam starts with two issues. Her mentor wants her to take one of the firm’s new associates as co-counsel in the case, in addition to her usual teammate. The partner is pushing, hard, for Vic Marin to be on Sam’s team. Sam can tell that Raul has a hidden agenda, but she’s not sure if he’s testing her partnership potential, or trying to scuttle it. And Sam finds Vic way too much of a temptation, all on his own. Their sexual chemistry could cause her enough distraction without any other “sidebars”.

And Perry Fitness is definitely “dirty”. There have been other deaths, other negligence claims. The question is whether to just go for damages, or to go for a criminal prosecution. Sam’s client wants the whole thing to be over so she can move on with her life. Vic wants to go for the manager of Perry Fitness with everything he has, because Vic has a hidden agenda of his own. One that should have kept him off the case. And Vic also has a not-so-hidden agenda. He wants Sam, possibly forever.

The question is, what does Sam want? Partnership, or love? She’s always wanted a partnership. She’s been working for it since day one. Love has never even been on her radar. Sam’s never believed she could have it all, and has always focused on what she was sure she could get. What if that isn’t enough?

Escape Rating B: I inhaled Jennifer’s Garden and Lust on the Rocks in two days. I got absorbed in the characters and the setting and really felt for them.

I have a soft spot for romances with an older woman/younger man theme. This one did a nice job playing with that without going over the top.

One story element that pushed it into the realm of fantasy was Sam’s previous relationship behavior combined with her being a lawyer on the fast-track at her firm. While I couldn’t help but admire her ability to not just flirt with, but catch, every man she wants, the idea that her employer knew about her exploits made me think that in real life, she wouldn’t be on the fast track. I think the double standard unfortunately still applies.

There’s a secondary plot in Lust on the Rocks about Sam’s younger sister Jess. I won’t spoil the story any further, but Jess has some very rough decisions to make. Her choices have consequences, and all of them are long-term. There wasn’t an easy out for her, and the story showed her struggle. It also highlighted some of Sam’s issues. Sam wanted to fix things for her, and had an extremely difficult time not taking over.

Lust on the Rocks will be out on October 19. Look for it!

Brass and Bone

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Brass and Bone by Cynthia Gael was a pretty good one-third of a story. The only problem is that I was expecting a whole story. A fairly short whole story (I knew the book was only 86 pages) but a whole story nevertheless.

What I got was a decent beginning to something. And then an abrupt “Epilogue”. Simon, one of the two point of view characters says that he feels like he’s fallen into a “penny dreadful”. Fallen into is right. And just as suddenly dropped out of.

Brass and Bone started out as lovely Steampunk. Two secret agents, one clearly a guttersnipe raised above his station, the other a Lady working considerably out of class, stealing secret plans and fantastic machinery for Queen and country from, and for, mad scientists. Airships fly overhead and steam men ply the streets alongside horse-drawn carriages.

Did I mention that Simon, the raised-up guttersnipe, has been in love with Abigail, the Lady of the piece, for years? And that she seems to be totally clueless in the matter?

But in addition to Simon and Abigail, there is a second plot involving Cynara and Henri. Cynara is a witch and Henri is an agent of the Witchfinder General. The Witchfinder General seems to also be a corporation known as WFG, Ltd. A very rich and influential corporation.

There is clearly some backstory about WFG, Ltd. from Gael’s previous work, Balefire and Lodestone, and Balefire and Moonstone. But due to the brevity of Brass and Bone, the backstory wasn’t in evidence here. There was just enough to tease, but not enough to satisfy.

When the two stories join things both get interesting, and get too involved to wrap up in the 86 pages available.

Escape Rating C-: I liked what I got, but I’m incredibly annoyed. This was really the first 7 chapters of a much longer story. I want that longer story. At least, I want to know when the rest of it is coming out. I expect novellas to have beginnings, middles and ends, not just beginnings. I was just starting to really get into the story when it stopped. The rating would be higher if I could find an announcement anywhere of when the next installment was coming out! Grrrr!

A Midwinter Fantasy

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> B Reviews> book reviews> C Reviews

A Midwinter Fantasy is a collection of three novellas that take place at, of course, Midwinter. In all three of the stories, it is the festival of giving, but because all of the stories are fantasy romances, the holiday celebrated is not always or not exactly Christmas.

The first story in the collection is A Christmas Carroll by Leanna Renee Hieber, and the story is set in the same storyline as her Strangely Beautiful series. In fact, the action of this Christmas tale takes place directly after the events of The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker.

Not being familiar with the previous tale, I felt like I had been dropped into the middle of a story, only because I had been. Once I caught up, things got a lot more interesting.

The title of the story is a play on both Dickens’ classic and the name of one of the characters. The author’s world is a close parallel to our Victorian era, except that the Victorian fascination with spiritualism represents concern about a real, and sometimes dangerous threat. But the spirits of Hieber’s “Whisper-World”, can also help the living, just as Marley’s Ghost arranges in Dickens’ famous Christmas Carol.

The “Carroll” in Hieber’s story is Michael Carroll, and the spirits help both him and Rebecca Thompson to discover not the true meaning of Christmas, but the true meanings of both friendship and love in this wrap-up of her series.

Although enough of Michael and Rebecca’s story was told in flashbacks for me to empathize with them, I would have enjoyed this more if I had read the entire series. But I enjoyed it enough, and I was intrigued enough, that I plan on going back and reading everything!

The Worth of a Sylph by L.J. McDonald is the second piece in the book. Lily Blackwell is an elderly woman who raises orphans in a remote house in Sylph Valley. She is also the human Master of a Battle Sylph named Mace. Mastery can be an equitable, loving arrangement, and in this case it is, although it is not always so. Sylphs provide the different types of magic that keep the Valley heated, the crops irrigated, provide water for washing, and protection, among other things. Linking to a master provides a Sylph with nourishment, including emotional sustenance, and a way of remaining in the world.

When the last of Lily’s orphans runs away, out of the Valley, she tasks Mace with retrieving the boy, no matter where he has gone. She also charges him with finding himself a new master before she dies, one that she can approve of. On Mace’s quest, he finds, not just the boy he was sent for, but a woman he can truly love and spend a life with, and not just one son, but two.

The story takes place during the Winter Festival, which is supposed to be celebrated with family. There is a message in the story that the family you create with love can be much stronger that the one you are born to.

Although Worth of a Sylph is also a part of a continuing series that begins with The Battle Sylph, it was much less obvious about it. I was able to jump right into the story and be involved with the characters right away. The story was complete in and of itself.

Last, but not least, the final story in this anthology is The Crystal Crib, by Helen Scott Taylor. I said not least, because the story deals with some larger than life figures, the Norse gods. Odin is the bad guy, having kept a father from his daughter for over 2,000 years, and enslaving his sons for the same length of time, all for crimes that other people committed.  Odin is someone who really knows how to hold a grudge!

Sonja thinks she has come to Iceland to convince the owner of “Santa’s Magical Wonderland” to allow her Aunt’s travel company to arrange tours to his resort. Little does she know that the owner of the resort is Vidar, the son of Odin, and, is also the “Guardian Angel” who has been protecting her all of her life. And, that her life has been considerably longer than the scant decades she remembers.

Her unexpected presence in Odin’s backyard forces a confrontation among the gods, monsters and angels who have protected her for her entire existence, and brings surprising dangers and rewards to everyone in her path.  This was a story about love truly conquering all.

This story is set in the same universe as Taylor’s The Magic Knot, but it reads as a stand-alone. I read it as someone playing tricks on Odin, which, considering the story, and considering other stories about Odin, seemed perfectly fair to me. However, this was also the least satisfying of the three stories. I wanted a lot more explanation for a 2,000 year old grudge than I got. And the heroine took the fact that she had been in suspended animation for those same two millennia a bit too much in stride, especially factoring in that her lover had been watching over her the entire time! Oh, and she might not die, ever. There was a bit too much fantasy in this fantasy.

Out of three stories, I vote Sylph very satisfying and complete, Carroll good and intriguing enough to make me want more, and Crystal not satisfying enough to make me go back for a return visit to the author’s world. YMMV.

Escape Ratings:  Christmas Carroll B+, Worth of a Sylph, A and, The Crystal Crib, C. 

 

The Usual Apocalypse

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

“With great power comes great responsibility.” Isn’t that how Peter Parker’s uncle said it? Then there’s the flip side, “Who watches the watchers?” In other words, who makes sure that the ones who have that great power use it responsibly?

In Christine Price’s futuristic The Usual Apocalypse, the great powers involved are of the paranormal variety, and the ones who take responsibility just call themselves “The Society”. The Society polices those who have paranormal ability. It also finds children who have talent, and it solves crimes against the talented. It’s a combination of the police and the FBI and the CIA. It even has its own Internal Affairs division!

The story in The Usual Apocalypse is the one about all the chickens coming home to roost, and not in a good way. I mean the chickens, not the story. The story was great.

The Society went through a really, really dark patch during a time when it was run by a group that treated the talented as experimental subjects rather than people. Talent doesn’t seem to be native to the human population. Anyone with significant talent can be thought of as not human, because they are descended from someone who wasn’t. Truly.

But the housecleaning was swift, thorough and brutal — and nearly a generation ago. But Agent Matt Whitman is tying up one of the loose ends. One mad doctor tried to recreate her sick, twisted experiments. Matt shut her down, finally, but wanted to give something back to the men whose lives she nearly destroyed. Six months later, he finally got a lead on Brennan Kincaid, one victim’s younger brother.

Matt finds Brennan and brings his  brother back to him. Reuniting the two brothers should have been the close of a long and brutal case. But then, senior agents start dying, and it all ties back to the bad old days, and all the deep, dark secrets come out of the shadows. No one is able to hide, not even the super-secret head of the Society. Because someone is trying to bring the bad old days back again.

Escape Rating B: I got wrapped up in the story, and wanted to know more. The Society is interesting. It reminded me of what the Council might have been like in Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling series if the Psy had kept their humanity and managed to police themselves instead of going completely Darkside. The Society went over the edge and pulled themselves back. I enjoyed the way that Matt and Brennan’s relationship developed. How to get a workaholic to stop being a workaholic is all too easy to relate to.  Matt and Brennan both have paranormal talent. Brennan hears people’s thoughts. Matt can make anyone spill their secrets by asking a question. This is an incredibly cool talent for a cop. One of the neat things about futuristic stories is exploring the differences. In this author’s world, there is way more prejudice against Matt and Brennan because they have paranormal talents than because they are gay. Good romance, good mystery, neat world-building.

Queen of the Sylphs

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

L.J. McDonald’s Queen of the Sylphs is her latest book set in the same world that she began in The Battle Sylph.

As the story begins, Solie has settled in as Queen of Sylph Valley. She has also grown into her new duties and responsibilities. She may sometimes mourn the days when she was a carefree girl who could afford to have simple friendships, but she is confident in the role that she has taken on, and she has every right to be.

The surrounding kingdoms are threatened by Sylph Valley. Their unorthodox treatment of their sylphs, allowing them to talk, to assume human form, to be educated and to  have an equal say in the way the Valley is governed, threatened the belief systems of every country that surrounds them. The battle sylphs protect all the woman in the Valley from every perceived threat, making Sylph Valley women the equals of men as they are nowhere else. Their more conservative neighbors are appalled. Sylph Valley women are called trash, whores, and sluts, but not within the confines of the Valley.

But Solie is Queen because all the Sylphs in the Valley are bound directly to her, and they will all protect her. Which means that she is the target of repeated assassination attempts by neighboring kingdoms. Especially from the Kingdom of Eferem, the land she escaped from in The Battle Sylph.

In Queen of the Sylphs, it is not just external threats that Solie has to fear. There is an internal threat as well, but one that is deeply entrenched within the Valley. Battlers can sense the emotions of those around them, but only when there actually are emotions to sense. A person who feels nothing, but commits terrible crimes anyway, in other words, a sociopath, is undetectable. A female sociopath presents a tremendous threat, because battlers are conditioned to protect females at all costs.

I didn’t enjoy Queen of the Sylphs as much as I did The Battle Sylph. The newness of the world has worn off, so I was expecting more growth from more of the characters, or a story with new twists and turns, preferably both. Solie is the one character who keeps moving forward, but the other characters are increasingly stock characters, particularly the villains. King Alcor is the distant big, bad, sending assassins to do his dirty work for him. The closer evil was the standard beautiful and manipulative witch. And, as a bonus added attraction, since she had no emotions, there wasn’t any way to get into her head to understand why she was committing her evil acts. I didn’t want to sympathize, but I did need to get the point, or at least, her point. I know she wanted to take over the Valley and get power. But why?

There is a secondary story, that of a healer sylph on the other side of the portal. This sylph is on her way to morphing into a sylph queen, but wants to remain a healer. She has a battler who has been exiled from the hive who wants her to become a queen and form her own hive, in the hopes that he will be her consort. It was an interesting idea for the author to try to show the other side from the sylph’s point of view before they cross over, but it is difficult to tell a story with characters who don’t have names.

Overall, this was an okay read. But I stayed up late to finish The Battle Sylph. I didn’t stay up to finish Queen. I went to sleep and waited until the next afternoon.  Escape Rating C.

Lord of Rage

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

Goldilocks and the three bears was never this hot.

Lord of Rage is Jill Monroe’s entry in the Royal House of Shadows multi-author series. The three bears in this story are brothers, and the Goldilocks is an exiled princess. A princess who learns to kick some serious ass. But otherwise, the fairy-tale thing totally works. With a slight dose of Snow White (mostly the dwarfs) added in for comic relief.

The Royal House of Shadows is the story of the fall of the house of Elden. The country is overthrown by a Blood Sorceror, and the last, desperate act of the King and Queen is to send their four children away from the carnage in the hopes that the princes, and one princess, might avenge their deaths. But the compulsions of royalty and parental love have different agendas.  With the force of their dying breaths, and the force of their death spell, the royal pair’s last spell compels their adult children to two almost diametrically opposed agendas. Their father’s spell obligates them to revenge themselves on the Blood Sorcerer. Their mother’s spell requires them to survive at all costs.

Breena has been a protected princess all of her life until the night that the Blood Sorceror invaded Elden. Now in her mid-20s, she has become restless and yearns for freedom from the restrictions that have bound and controlled her life. She should have married long ago, but her father has been saving her for the most advantageous political marriage. Her mother has promised her that her magic will come to her when she is married. Until the attack, her only magic was in the ability to walk in dreams, and the dreams she walks in are those of a warrior who may be real, or may be a construct of her imagination.

But during the attack, due the force of her parents’ spell, she reaches out for the one person who can help her survive, and help her find vengeance–the warrior of her dreamscape. And finds herself in a deserted woodlands, far from home. After wandering for days, she practically stumbles into an empty cabin in the woods. It represents food, shelter, and a relatively safe place to rest.

When the residents of the cabin return, they find spilled food, a broken chair, and a blonde woman sleeping in one of the beds. The owners are the last of the Ursans, men who take on the spirit of the bear when they fight. They are berserkers. Or, at least one of them is. Osborn, the oldest, is a true berserker. His two brothers are too young. Their people were slaughtered before the boys could learn the Ursan tradition. But Osborn has kept them safe on Ursan land. “Goldilocks” has been found by the three bears, after she has eaten their “porridge”, tried out their furniture, and is sleeping in one of their beds.

The boys want to keep Breena. They think she will cook and clean for them, not realizing that she has never done such things. Osborn wants to keep her, too, but for much more adult reasons. He has dreamed of her. Many, many nights. But he always thought she was a creature of his own fevered imagination. Breena wakes to find that her warrior is real, and very, very angry.  Osborn thinks Breena has been manipulating him all along, especially when she asks for his help. He’s been a mercenary. He gave up that life to take care of his brothers and to take care of the Ursan lands. He doesn’t want to go back to being just a hired sword. Especially not for this woman who has invaded his dreams.

Escape Rating B+: I liked Lord of Rage even better than Lord of the Vampires, the first book in the series. The relationship between Breena and Osborn develops gradually–even though they’ve been dreaming about each other, dreams don’t translate to instant knowledge. They have a lot of real-world issues to work through first. There’s a big trust issue they need to get past, and the story shows them both working on it. Breena and Osborn earned their happy ending. We just won’t know if they actually get one until the end of the whole series.

New York to Dallas

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | A Reviews> book reviews

Just let me say this up front. I love Eve Dallas and Roarke. I’ve read every single book, and I think every short story.

I have 30 books I’m supposed to review between now and the end of January. I told myself I had plenty of other stuff I should be reading. And I couldn’t stop myself from buying J.D. Robb’s New York to Dallas last night. And finishing it. Last night. I’m amazed I waited two whole days to get the book.

The …In Death series are super books. Both in the sense of “you’ve got to read this book” and in the sense of “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman!”.

Why? Because all the books contain three genres successfully mashed into a single story. Every book, from Naked in Death to the very latest, is a police procedural, and a pretty cozy one at that. A crime is committed, usually a murder. Eve Dallas, a homicide cop, and her team eventually solve the crime. Eve uses the policies and procedures that cops use. She investigates the crime. She follows the law. She interviews witnesses. Forensic evidence is collected and examined. This should sound familiar, it is the staple of every crime show and every mystery novel from Sherlock Holmes to Agatha Christie to Law and Order.

Eve has a team. Every member of her team has a role to play. Feeney is her mentor. Peabody is her plucky young assistant. Mira is the motherly figure. Mavis is the best friend. As readers, we come to care about Eve’s team, her surrogate family. We read the books because we want to know what happens to them as they grow and change.

Then there’s Roarke. The ongoing romantic relationship between Eve and Roarke is an amazing literary accomplishment. Most romantic series “jump the shark” when the primary couple resolves the romantic tension. But not Eve and Roarke. New York to Dallas is the 33rd book in the series, and their relationship is just as hot as it was in Naked in Death, the first book. They know they are lucky, and as readers, we experience it with them. They fight like tigers, sometimes to the point of drawing blood, but it’s still exciting to watch.

And, lest we forget, this series is also futuristic. The year is 2060, not 2011. The world has changed, both for the better and for the worse. Mankind has colonized the Moon and Mars and created off-planet havens. Droids serve as personal servants. But there was a cost for all of this progress–the Urban Wars that occur sometime between our now and Eve’s. The Wars are by no means a distant memory, no more than the tensions of the Vietnam Era are to us.

In New York to Dallas, Eve’s career comes full circle, and that circle intersects with the shadows of her own past. When she was a rookie, she arrested a predatory pedophile named Isaac McQueen. She was observant, and she was lucky. And Eve knew what he was because she’d been the victim of someone just like him. She saved 22 girls from a monster. The monster got life in prison. And Eve was found by Feeney, who recognized that she was meant to be a cop. He transferred her to Homicide Division, and her life began.

Escape Rating A: If you’ve read the rest of the series, read this one now. If you haven’t, and you’ve always meant to, get Naked in Death, and start now.

Lucky Girl

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Jessica Devlin doesn’t really feel like a lucky girl. Four months ago, she came home late one night to find her fiance banging one of the receptionists from his office. His nasty comment that she couldn’t blame him since she wasn’t home and that she was lousy in bed led not just to the direct demise of their engagement but also to the continuing death spiral of Jess’ ego. Unfortunately, she’s spent the past four months drowning her sorrows in Ben & Jerry’s.

Her cousin is getting married in England, and Jess is the maid of honor.  Her final dress fitting doesn’t go well. Four months repeated applications of Mr. Ben and Mr. Jerry haunt the fitting room. But she is still going on her first vacation in two years, her first trip back to England since the death of her beloved grandfather.

It’s clear that Jess has some unfinished business in England with a handsome stranger she met, a man she fantasizes about as “Spy Man”. Nick Mondinello looks rather like a younger version of Pierce Brosnan, the actor who played James Bond a couple of times. Jess assumes that any man that gorgeous won’t want anything to do with her slightly overweight and rather out-of-shape self. Especially since when they met two years ago, she threw up in a planter and then sobbed on his shoulder.

But Nick turns out to be the best man at her cousin’s wedding. And he is very interested in Jess.

Jess thinks this is all too good to be true, that it can’t possibly last, and that Nick can’t possibly want her. But Jess has also made a pact with herself to grab a whole new life while she’s on vacation, to finally be the heroine of her own story. And she’s only going to be in England for two weeks. If “Spy Guy” wants to have a two-week fling, who is she to turn him down?

Lucky Girl, by Cate Lord is a light, fun read. One of the elements I loved was Jess’ near-obsession with the “Plucky Penguin” collectibles, and that Nick collected them too. The concept of the TV show about the spy penguin and his girlfriend was cute and funny, but also a part of the story.

I didn’t get some of the parts about Jess’ job at the magazine. Jess worked in Orlando, and it was a beauty magazine, so the name of the magazine was O Tart? O please! And then there was that secondary story about Jess’ work being sabotaged that was just not fully resolved. Who did it? We never know for sure, and neither does Jess. That still bothers me. There’s an assumption, but it’s not a complete answer. Jess’ angst over the missing stories, and needing to write substitute stories, and getting her cousins and Nick involved with the creation of those stories was a fairly major plot point. Not finding the villain for certain, even if Jess couldn’t prove it, made it feel like the story was a tiny bit unfinished.

Escape Rating C: Worth finishing the story, but I wanted all the ends wrapped up.

Stone Cold Seduction

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

When first we meet our heroine, Elleodora Fredricks, she is in the process of burgling her sperm donor’s office building. As the story opens, Elle only thinks the jerk is spawn of Satan. By the time the book ends, Elle realizes he might actually be a demon. Or the next nearest thing.

Stone Cold Seduction by Jess Macallan opens with a kick-ass female Robin Hood clinging to the side of a high-rise in a catsuit. If our heroine had only thought her evil dad was just the usual corporate variety of evil, this would have been an interesting enough premise. But…

Elle has some serious memory issues, because Dear-Old-Dad isn’t just your typical corporate badass. Dad is the King of the Shadow Elves, and Elle feels like Alice tripping down the proverbial rabbit hole as all of her friends start revealing everything King Dad, AKA “the sperm donor” has deleted from her memory. It’s one of his powers that she has also been made to forget.

But now, Dad is after her, along with his goon squad. And so are all the other powers in his “Shadow World”. Because Elle hasn’t been stealing mere baubles like she thought she was. She’s been stealing something much more important. She’s been stealing “soul gems”, an item, and a concept, she didn’t even know existed a few days ago.

And her friends, her “crew” who have been helping her? They’re not who they seem either. Her best friend Teryl turns out to be an oracle. And the new man in her life, Jax? He answered an ad for a stockroom clerk at her store. But he’s really a gargoyle. Now he says he’s her fated mate.

And what’s this fate thing all about? Elle isn’t sure she believes in this destiny thing. A few days ago, she was happy running her custom perfume store, trying to right some of the wrongs her dad did. Now, not just her life but also her entire universe has turned upside down.

And in the middle of it all, a man from her past returns. And guess what? Not only is MacLean a phoenix, but he is also her fated mate.  What’s a girl to do?

Verdict: I really liked the Elle who was clinging to that building. The catburglar Elle was fantastic! But the more Elle finds out about herself and her lineage, the more she retreats into her 17-year old self, and that person is in a really bad place. I want to see Elle get her mojo back, and that’s not going to happen until the next book.

Because this is a series (Stone Cold Seduction is the first book of Set in Stone) I will say I liked Elle enough to want to see what she does next. At the end, I could see that she was starting to get her own back. Good on her.

At the end, Elle got to see her fate, and she has not one, but two fated mates, and it is her choice which one to pick. I’m looking forward to watching her make both men grovel in the next book!

Escape Rating: B in anticipation of Elle getting her groove back in the next book.

Hold Me

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | book reviews> C Reviews

Betsy Horvath’s Hold Me is the story of an undercover FBI agent who accidentally involves a civilian in his work, only to discover that she has been part of his life all along.

Katie McCabe’s life had been going pretty much nowhere since she broke up with her fiance. Breaking up with him had been the absolute right thing to do, since she caught him screwing his boss at work on his desk late one night. Beating them both with a handy broom handle might not have been Katie’s best idea. Totally deserved, but not her best idea.

Lucas Vasco is an undercover FBI agent, and his cover has just been blown. He knew that breaking into the mobster’s empty office this particular evening wasn’t his best idea, but the guy and his goons were supposed to away all night. Diving for the window seemed like his only way out.

Luc’s window dive put him on the street as Katie was driving by, six months after her infamous break-up. Her life was still a mess. Her career had sunk after the broom beating, and her car was barely functioning and in need of serious repairs. Then an FBI agent being chased by gunmen jumps into her car, says he’s one of the good guys and asks her to drive, fast. Then the gunmen start shooting at her.

When the cops show up, they’re certain it’s all Katie’s fault because of the broom handle incident. The FBI shows up and vouch for their agent. But the mobster now knows who Katie is, and he’s just off his rocker at getting his name on the police blotter, even if no charges are filed. Katie didn’t witness anything, so she can’t go into Witness Protection. But since the mobster is a nutjob, she needs some serious protection. Luc takes her home with him.

Luc doesn’t just want to protect Katie from the bad guys, he wants to protect her forever. But Luc isn’t just an undercover agent, it’s his whole life that is undercover. He has a lot of secrets about his past that he needs to reveal to Katie before they have any chance at a happily ever after.

Verdict: I picked this up because the description reminded me of an old TV show, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, and I loved that show. That story was about a spy who accidentally involves a civilian and falls in love with her.  Hold Me starts out a little like that, but keeps adding more layers. First, FBI agent drafts civilian. Then he has to protect her. After that, her mother gets kidnapped by the mobsters. Everyone goes to Atlantic City for a big showdown in the casinos. and a second showdown back home with the FBI mole. And his foster sister is also her foster sister.  That last bit may have been one layer too many on the cake. This was a good story and these were great characters without foster care added on. The side story of Katie’s parents’ marriage falling apart was heart wrenching but made enough of a counterpoint to the main story.

Escape Rating: C: Worth finishing at lunch the next day, but the subplot pile-on was too much to keep me up into the wee hours waiting for the pile to crash.