Author - Linda Howard
ISBN - 9780345486554
This book opened so strong and I was sucked in immediately. Certainly I was titillated, but I kept reading because I wanted to know how this was all going to get resolved - assassin lovers and ladies on the run - interesting... I found myself drawn in until about half-way through the book when the protagonist is the recipient of a miracle! I am sure that miracles are standard fair in many books, but a romance novel involving the mob, assassins, and murder are another thing. Maybe it's just that I prefer to compartmentalize miracles and sex, or maybe it's just my analytical brain. Either way, I found these 20 pages or so to be jarring as a reader. The unreality of this plot twist pulled me out of the story. Not to mention that as a result of this miracle the protagonist is gifted with premonitory abilities - and as far as I could tell this additional characteristic had no bearing on the plot.
One of the other issues that I found fault with was that I don't remember our alpha-male character telling his female lead that he loved her. He might have conveyed his love through actions, but doesn't every girl, even the strong ones, want to hear the words uttered? Maybe I just missed it...
Overall, I found this to be an entertaining, albeit slightly flawed read; I wanted more of the characters, more cat and mouse, more steaminess and less miracle filler. Nevertheless, if you like Linda Howard or suspense romance novels, I would recommend this book.
Isn't every romance novel, after all, a fantasy? The scene to which you are referring becomes a miracle because of the duration of the heroine's effective death -- she's supposedly without a beating heart for an hour. In any of these books, and this one in particular, I'm reminded of the old canard about any work of fiction, it's the "willing suspension of disbelief" and that's what was working for me here. I liked the story, the writing, the characters -- a lot. My problem with the book is that the sex scenes just aren't that exciting. Forgive me for saying it, but in the the jaunty, internet-banking savvy heroine changes her identity, traipses across the country with an assassin on her heels, only to have a car-crash-total-death experience, and re-make herself as a waitress in a truck stop before she is allowed to have the earth-shattering and not-so-fabulous encounter with her beloved "death angel". I think after all she endured she (and we) deserved a better experience in the sack. Just sayin'.
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