Covert Seduction by Callie Croix

Covert Seduction
Grade-C
Hotness Level-Inferno
Kink Level-None
Genre-Romantic Suspense
Reviewed by Kay

Reid Galvin is a Navy SEAL on leave after a horrible mission and all he wants is to see Becca Anderson. They had a situation before he was deployed and it carried on through his deployment. He has decided how he feels about her and wants to set matters right.

Becca Anderson is an employee at an investment firm who decrypted a file for a co-worker recently that was quite a shock. She loves Reid but has a hard time with his job and where their relationship stands. Reid calls her to set up a time for them to talk things out and interrupts her on a date that really isn’t one.

David told Becca that on the file she decrypted that some one embezzled money from the firm. Big money, like two billion dollars big. He gives her a copy of the information on a zip drive. She’s very scared about all this as she should be but agrees to wait until David has found out everything and everyone involved before they go to the authorities.

On the way home from the fundraiser they are ran off the road by another car and into a deep canal. They are trapped upside down inside the car with water seeping in from a crack in the back windshield. Meanwhile, Reid decides to wait for Becca at her house to come home after her date and happens upon the accident scene. He jumps in to rescue whoever is trapped, having no idea it’s Becca.

He rescues them both and then takes Becca back to her apartment to take care of her. The next day, she gets a phone message from David saying someone has broken in and ransacked his home. She then hears someone attack David and the line goes dead. She at that point tells Reid. At the same time downstairs, a man breaks into her house. Reid chases down the man and holds him until the police come.

Reid takes Becca to his friend’s beach house where they stay until the police wrap everything up, which they do quite quickly. They both admit they love each other and are willing to work on their relationship. In the epilogue, they are happily married.

This was just an okay read for me. It was plenty hot enough and that was done well. There was a couple of things that didn’t ring true for me, such as, Reid and Becca having sex in front of a picture window where the neighbors could and did see her. Also, Becca made a comment about tying him up at her mercy. The book describes how dominant he is and how he’s held back in their encounters in the past, so I don’t see him allowing himself to be tied up. Nor do I by into an alpha male allowing anyone to see the woman they want to marry, naked. Those for whatever reason were an issue for me. The rescue scene with the car trapped in the canal was pretty good but again, just an okay read for me.

Out of This World by Jill Shalvis

Out Of This World
Grade – C+
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary/Paranormal
Reviewed by Kate

One of the things I love about my library is it’s romance section. Four shoulder-height racks that rotate. The part I like best is that they are only loosely alphabetized. Meaning all the “M”s are together, but not necessarily in order. It might seem like a strange thing to appreciate, but I love stumbling across a favorite author’s book I haven’t heard of before. That’s how I found this quirky Shalvis read.

Rachel inherits a Bed & Breakfast in Alaska from her aunt. She takes her good friend Kellan with her to explore the B&B. There she meets Marilee, the cook who can’t cook, and Axel, the guide who always gets lost.

Rachel and Kel get struck by lightning and wake up with x-ray vision (for Rachel) and super-human strength (for Kel). And that’s just the beginning of the strangeness. A secret pair of guests, the aunt’s fully stocked gun cabinet, and dimension jumping pirates round out the plot.

This is definitely a departure from the Lucky Harbor Shalvis I am used to. Written in first person from both Rachel and Kel’s point-of-view, Shalvis has created a separate world that you are only given the smallest glimpse of, enough to leave me with tons of unanswered questions.

Found: One Runaway Bride by Stella Bagwell

Found: One Runaway Bride
Grade – C
Hotness Level – Blaze
Kink Level – None
Genre – Contemporary
Reviewed by Kate

Ahhhh—an amnesiatic (if that’s not a word, I’m making it one) bride. Cordell finds a car in a cornfield. Inside he finds Abby wearing a wedding dress and unable to remember anything other than her first name. The car has no registration or plates and Abby has no identification.

After a night in the hospital, Abby has a choice to make. She can either ride an hour with the sleazy sheriff to a battered women’s shelter where she can stay for a while. Or, she can take Cordell up on his offer to recover at his farmhouse with him and his two children.

Cordell’s wife died 2 years ago. She was a high-maintenance woman who was never happy on the farm. She also had more than one affair during their marriage. Cordell is determined to never marry or fall in love again (is there a hero out there who is looking for love?), but he does enjoy the cooking and cleaning Abby is doing while she stays in his house.

While Abby would like to explore her attraction to Cordell, he resists at every turn. After all, she already ran from one man at her wedding. What’s to keep her from leaving him? Cordell is positive once her memory returns she will want no part of farm life.

I’m not exactly sure what I was hoping for at the end of the book, but the resolution left me feeling flat. The beginning held such promise but it didn’t deliver.