TEST
The Colton 911: Grand Rapids series is part of a wider universe featuring members of the Colton family (who are all military, law enforcement or in some other related profession) who live and work across the US. It’s a multi-author series, in which all the books are supposed to be able to stand alone, but as I quickly discovered not long after I started reading Colton 911: Agent By Her Side (book four in the Grand Rapids series) the need to incorporate various items of backstory led to lots and lots of mind-numbing info-dumps that added precisely nothing to the main storyline.
The overarching plot of this mini-series concerns the search for con artist Wes Matthews, who has defrauded people of millions and endangered lives by selling a fake supplement promising to be a fountain of youth called RevitaYou that containes traces of Ricin, AND scammed most of his investors out of a fortune via a dodgy pyramid scheme. Matthews has eluded capture so far, but this story opens with a call to the FBI tip line with information that he’s holed up in a remote location by Reeds Lake. The person manning the tip line is not an FBI agent or employee but a local PI, Kiely Colton – which felt completely unlikely; why would the FBI employ a PI to man their phones? (And is it ‘Keeley’ or ‘Kylie’? I like to pronounce names correctly in my head when I’m reading, and continually wondering what it was supposed to be pulled me out of the story almost every time I saw it.)
Anyway, Kiely takes the tip to Special Agent Cooper Winston, with whom we’re told she has butted heads in the past, and who is heading up the hunt for Matthews. Kiely and Cooper are just about to head out to the lake to check out the tip when Cooper gets a call from his son’s preschool to say that little Alfie has been snatched. An anonymous phone call after they arrive telling Cooper to stop the search for Matthews confirms suspicions that whoever took Alfie is related to the case somehow, so Cooper and Kiely decide to check out the cottage at Reeds Lake and whaddya know? Alfie and the kidnapper are there!
They rescue Alfie – but Cooper suffers a couple of cracked ribs, a head injury and a concussion, and receives strict instructions from the doctor that he’s to take it easy for six weeks – how on earth will he manage? No prizes for guessing he asks Kiely to become his live-in nanny.
Kiely – who isn’t fond of kids and whose sisters insist she doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body – finds that Alfie has “somehow wrangled a tight grip on her heart” She’s a domestic goddess, making gourmet meals and getting Alfie to eat whatever she serves up without complaint. A couple of days later, Cooper’s house is bombed and he’s once again warned off searching for Matthews.
Cooper, Kiely and Alfie are moved to a luxury safe house where Kiely gets to do yet more gourmet cooking, more bonding with Alfie and more making eyes at Cooper. Oh, no wait – there’s no making eyes, and no romantic tension between Cooper and Kiely whatsoever. We’re told they’re attracted to each other – Kiely finds the sight of Cooper in nothing but his boxers causes “heat [to] course straight though her feminine spirit” for example (whatever the hell a “feminine spirit” is – Gin? Vodka?) – but shown nothing to back it up.
After the move to the safe house, we tread water until around the three-quarters mark, but I’d lost interest long before then. And I had to wonder – how safe is a safe house where the people living there can make phone calls on their personal mobiles, go out grocery shopping and have their sister over to visit? There are so many inconsistencies in the story I can’t possibly point to them all. We spend over half the book watching Cooper and Kiely play Happy Families while the author talks up their non-existent connection, until Kiely comes out with this gem:
“Are you interested in a relationship, Cooper?”
Before they’ve even kissed – but even if they had, who SAYS something like that?!
There are a couple of sex scenes, hence the ‘warm’ rating going by AAR’s guidelines, but personally, I’d rate it as ‘damp (and not in a good way!) squib’ – and it’s full of flowery language about “sensual gratification” and “hedonistic decadence” and “heat rising like a vengeance between them” – when there’s no heat at all.
The writing is wooden and cliché-laden; my Kindle is bursting with notes, but here’s one choice passage:
“She was sunshine in the midst of a storm. Her carefree spirit was like a breath of fresh air. She was light in a well of darkness. She was everything he had been missing in his lie. He had vowed to never love again, but something about Kiely had him reconsidering that pledge.”
PUH-LEEEZE.
And when Cooper says this to Kiely:
“Who knows why women do what they do? I stopped trying to figure you and your kind out years ago.”
I was hard pressed to remember that this book was published in 2020 and was written by a woman.
So we’ve got a plot that basically goes nowhere, a commitment shy hero and heroine, a bunch of family connections far too large to keep track of, and Alfie the wonder-kid, one of those miraculous plot-moppets who, though often referred to as “the baby” can say things like “Open da door, Ki-Ki! Got to go potty!” and “Me was a bad boy. Alfie will be good, okay?” , and is confused when he registers that Kiely’s twin sister looks like Kiely but isn’t her. (I’m not sure a toddler would notice or care much about it!)
Colton 911: Agent By Her Side is the first book I’ve read by this author and on this showing, it’ll be the last. I haven’t read any of the other books in this series, and even though they’re by a variety of authors, I’m not exactly inspired with confidence to try another one. This one isn’t romantic, it’s not suspenseful and to call the characters cardboard cut-outs is, frankly, an insult to cardboard-cut outs everywhere.
Buy it at: Amazon
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Grade: D
Book Type: Romantic Suspense
Sensuality: Warm
Review Date: 26/11/20
Publication Date: 10/2020
Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.
Related Reviews
Woo hoo! I’m glad a Harlequin Romantic Suspense finally got reviewed on AAR! Thanks for taking the plunge, Caz.
Having said that, I’ve never actually read a Harlequin Romantic Suspense because the free previews I’ve read haven’t grabbed me. In other words, they’ve all been DNS (did not start) as opposed to DFN. It didn’t help matters any that I kept seeing this Colton 911 thing that didn’t appeal to me. That’s the problem with series as opposed to true standalones. If you’ve got devoted fans, you can’t go wrong. But if you have potential readers with absolutely no interest in the series, tough luck. Even though I think the overall concept of Harlequin Romantic Suspense is cool, I’ve yet to read a single title in the line because of over-reliance on interconnected books and squicky, cliched, purple prose like you mentioned.
Another thing about this line is that like Harlequin Historical, they allow a range of heat levels from flowery euphemisms to smoking hot- at least according to their submission guidelines page. That makes it difficult to know what to expect in terms of sexy times. I’m not saying that has to be the focus, but if a book is just so-so, at least give me something for my trouble.
Thanks again, Caz, for slogging through this one.
Can I ask, Nan, how you know they’re all squicky, cliched, purple prose if you’ve never actually read one? You’re relying on other people’s opinions?
Not being snarky — I really do wonder. I’m on a non-book forum where periodically a bunch of people announce their great disdain for romances in general and Harlequins in particular, and yet they all claim they’ve never read one. They just KNOW, as if they’ve absorbed it from the atmosphere. Being a long-time romance reader, I get annoyed but I know better than to confront them because they just double-down. But I hate that it does probably taint other people’s views of the romance genre.
Personal disclaimer: HQ’s Romantic Suspense has always been my favorite of their lines from its beginning back in the Stone Age as Intimate Moments. (Though I do agree, the publisher-generated series like the Coltons need to go away forever.)
I’m a big fan of Harlequin Historicals – in fact, if I may take a moment to blow my own trumpet here, it’s because I felt they were so underrated that I reached out to authors to get review copies that we now review them regularly. The problems I found here, however, are problems I’ve encountered regularly in m/f romantic suspense over the last few years – namely that the romances aren’t at all well-developed or are shoe-horned in at the last minute. I recently listened to (and reviewed at AudioGals) Mary Burton’s latest, Burn You Twice and while it’s labelled Romantic Suspense, the romance is practically non-existent and the ILYs at the end come out of nowhere. That’s not a Harlequin title, I’m just citing it for comparison.
There is a lot of really good RS out there – Loreth Anne White, Rachel Grant and Toni Anderson are some of my favourites – but I think the Harlequin line maybe doesn’t have the page-count to fully develop both story elements. That said, the plotting in this particular book was pretty poor. The Burton book I mentioned and the April Hunt book I reviewed a few weeks back might not have been satisfying romances, but they did at least have inriguing plotlines.
“I’m a big fan of Harlequin Historicals”
I’ve become a fan too, although my faith has been wavering after some recent mediocre entries. Most recently, The Shopkeeper to the Earl of Westram felt a bit meh. This is why I’m not a reviewer; I have trouble quantifying my problems with a work- especially if more than a few days have passed. But what I remember being the most cringeworthy were the sex scenes that felt like they came out of the #MeToo playbook. Okay, I get it. The heroine is understandably a Regency virgin, but she sells erotic antiques and isn’t made of glass. And after all this excessive, mood-killing “I’ll only do blah blah blah if you want me too” dialogue from the hero, the heroine can magically orgasm (or “fly apart” as the author says) from being barely diddled with one finger. *Sigh* I’ll give the heroine credit for being direct in her questions- which leads to some great exchanges between her and the hero, both in and out of the bedroom. But once again, we get the cliched “tallest man in the room” and rippling muscles from a titled guy whose most strenuous activity is what, horseback riding maybe? I don’t know. As much as I loved the idea of a shopkeeper heroine defending her reputation against accusations of a fraudulent sale, the story fell into too many standard romance clichés for me to enjoy.
Sorry for the rant, but I haven’t given up on HH!
As for romantic suspense, I think you’re right about the difficulty of effectively combining thriller with romance. There’s definitely a delicate balance so you don’t end up having the characters rolling around in the mud only feet away from the enemy.
Getting back to what I was saying about ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances rather than cops and military in RS, I thought the B-movie Project Shadowchaser had a good premise in this regard despite its so-so execution. In this sci-fi thriller, the hero is a former football player who gets released from prison because he is mistaken for the architect of a hospital being held hostage. So, he basically goes on this dangerous mission to get a pardon (the idiotic people in charge of the rescue mission don’t realize he isn’t the right guy until after he is in the building, and the rest of the rescue team is dead, so they sort of have to play ball with him). Meanwhile, he has to rescue the president’s daughter- who is the main reason why the bad guys have taken over the hospital. You’re definitely dealing with suspension of disbelief here, but it’s a fun suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately, like you said, the romance feels shoehorned into the action story. But in the right hands, I think this type of story would have made a good RS, whether on screen or on the page- no sci-fi elements required.
Oh, good heavens, no! I don’t have any disdain for Harlequins. I definitely started off as one of “those people” who would walk by a display of romance novels with my nose in the air without having actually read one. And then I read a few in a negative spirit of finding a get rich quick scheme, only to realize how wrong I was about the romance genre.
“Can I ask, Nan, how you know they’re all squicky, cliched, purple prose if you’ve never actually read one? You’re relying on other people’s opinion?”
Fair question. No, I’m not relying on other people’s opinions. I’m basing my judgment on the skimming I’ve done through free previews as well as the limited e-books in the line that I’ve checked out of the library. When I didn’t see the stories working for me, I flipped through to see if the style would improve. For me, it didn’t. Now, admittedly, I haven’t looked through any recent Harlequin Romantic Suspense titles. I’m definitely willing to give them another try, but a lot of the military plotlines in the product descriptions just don’t appeal to me. I’d really like to see more glamorous, dare I say exotic, locales with ordinary heroines getting caught up in extraordinary circumstances rather than so many tough-as-nails investigators. Give me a librarian who accidentally gets swept up in the middle of a drug cartel or something. Maybe they have stories like that too. Unfortunately, my library selection is somewhat limited for this line, which is probably narrowing my view of their offerings.
So far, I’ve had better luck with the Harlequin Intrigue line in terms of stories that have grabbed me with fast pacing and action. But even they’ve narrowed their focus lately. Now they’re US locations only. Some of the older titles followed the characters through steamy jungles abroad and whatnot. I guess they’ve diverted their international adventures over to Romantic Suspense.
“Though I do agree, the publisher-generated series like the Coltons need to go away forever.”
Yeah, I think this might be the number one thing keeping me away. It seems like every second book they’re releasing is a Colton story, and like I said, the premise of the series just doesn’t grab me. I’ll have to dig a little deeper in their catalog, I think. I certainly didn’t mean to insult one of your favorite lines. :)
Nan, Thank you for your well-reasoned reply. I’ve lived much of my life with people looking down on my reading choices, and the Internet’s made it so much easier for them to get nasty about it.
I read a blog from an HRS author years ago who was planning a sequel to one of her books that would take place in India — glamorous locations, ancient palace, mysterious characters, and a huge fabled diamond — but it was rejected for being too exotic. It sounded like the kind of book I would have loved.
A librarian caught up in a drug cartel … I remember an old Intimate Moments that was exactly that! I do miss the variety in characters and settings, as well as the envelope-pushing from, say, 20 years ago. As the market shrank, so has the HRS world.
You’re welcome, Olivia. The internet’s definitely a double-edged sword. On the one hand, fans of obscure or frowned-upon genres/tropes/whatever can find a forum for discussion that may not be widely available in the “real world.” On the other hand, the relative anonymity of the internet promotes a kind of openness toward expressing meanness and other petty behaviors. Still, I’d much rather live in a world with internet than without it.
“I read a blog from an HRS author years ago who was planning a sequel to one of her books that would take place in India — glamorous locations, ancient palace, mysterious characters, and a huge fabled diamond — but it was rejected for being too exotic. It sounded like the kind of book I would have loved.”
I am practically salivating over that description. That is exactly the kind of book I would want to read too! As much as I enjoy a number of Harlequin books, sometimes I think they play it way too safe and formulaic to the exclusion of truly interesting story ideas. Their imprint, Carina Press, has been a little more daring, but even they’re starting to shift their focus just based on my perfunctory observations and reviews.
“I do miss the variety in characters and settings, as well as the envelope-pushing from, say, 20 years ago.”
I haven’t been a romance reader for very long, but I know what you mean. Some of the titles from even a couple of years ago that I’ve picked up at the library feel a little more daring than the new releases- at least from what I’ve read in the Intrigue line. Harlequin Historical has started to tiptoe into more unusual time periods and settings, but there’s still a lot of titled Regency. I know it’s probably one of their most popular setups- and they sure won’t go broke churning out the tried and true!- but it’s generally not for me. When I do read Regencies, it’s despite the setting, not because of it. I’m happy for all you Regency duke fans out there, but I’m just not one of them. No hard feelings intended! :)
I suspect the book rejected for being ‘too exotic’ would today run the risk of being called out for cultural appropriation or something similar.
My thoughts exactly, Caz. Instead of flooding the market with a variety of stories and settings, publishers are boxing themselves and their authors into bland, innocuous, “inoffensive” sameness. I definitely get some of the concerns, but society is unfortunately moving in a direction of cancelling and calling out rather than intelligently discussing and/or offering alternatives.
Thank goodness for AAR! It’s one of the last venues out there able to handle adult discussions rather than resorting to firestorms. I just wish more publishers, movie studios, and other art producers had the guts to stand up for themselves and their creators instead of caving into nebulous complaints from people who don’t have anything better to do than whine about how allegedly offensive everything is.
I’ve enjoyed some Harlequin RS authors, like Jill Sorenson. But some of my favorite suspense titles by Harlequin were in their defunct Blaze line. I haven’t read any Romantic Suspense line titles in a long time, however.
Although Harlequin Presents will always be my angsty favorite line, I’ve also recently enjoyed some romances from the Harlequin Desire line—especially books by Naima Simone. In addition to having gorgeous covers with attractive models and lovely gowns, the stories often have interracial/intercultural couples, which makes a refreshing change. I’m still annoyed that Harlequin discontinued the Blaze line only to replace it with the wobbly Dare line, which never really found its footing and is, I believe, also being discontinued next year. They shoulda stuck with Blaze!
Yep, Dare’s Died a Death ;). I think they were trying to appeal to the 50 Shades market – the UK covers are all black-and,-white and some are quite arty – but the books themselves had the same sort of heat level as your average contemp these days. I think they raised certain expectations and didn’t deliver on them.
I think you’re spot-on with Harlequin wanting to capture the 50 Shades market. The problem is, they never wanted to go all the way- probably because they were trying to simultaneously balance a more wholesome reputation/image for their company.
Then Carina Press tried to jump onto the racy content bandwagon with their “Dirty Bits” line of erotic romance novellas, but that went by the wayside too. I think the main problem with that idea is that there is way too much competition with self-published smut on KDP. Sorry, but it isn’t cost effective to do professional shorts that a) are in an odd word count range to begin with (their 10,000-20,000 words requirement, IIRC, is definitely in a dead zone for sales) and b) anyone can just slap up similar content for a grand total of $0 investment and still make sales.
As for Harlequin Blaze, I haven’t read any yet, but my library has some old copies. The plots sound really intriguing, I’ll have to give them a try.
One of my biggest bugbears in RS is when the action stops for some completely time-inappropriate shagging ;) I’m not too worried about the heat level in RS; I want a decent, well-executed plot and an equally well-done romance, and neither of those things is true here. I will try another one, though in the hope of finding something better.
“I’m not too worried about the heat level in RS; I want a decent, well-executed plot and an equally well-done romance.”
I hear ya. But I would at least like to see some palpable tension between the leads sans badly-timed sexy times. Then maybe when all the foes are vanquished, they can let out all that steam- in detail. ;)
I would at least like to see some palpable tension between the leads sans badly-timed sexy times.
Yes, exactly. Melinda Leigh’s latest Bree Taggert series has some cracking sexual tension between the two leads, but they only kissed at the end of the second book (which was the most recently released one). And even then the kiss happens off the page!! (I hope for a bit more in the next book!)
One time I read an RS seal/military book (can’t remember the name….I didn’t finish it) where the hero and heroine are in a desert area. He leaves her in a cave for safety and goes to watch the bad guys all day. He buries himself under the sand to hide. Later he returns to the cave and he and the heroine have sexy times. Now, the author has made a big deal about the scarcity of water and there is no mention of him washing up. No. Just no! Anyone who has even touched sand knows you can’t brush that stuff off, and he was sweating and…just yuck!
That might have been one of the worst examples, but RS novels are too often full of inappropriate sexy times, or, one of my favorites, sex after having been shot or otherwise injured. ::shakes head::
Gah, the I’ve-got-a-head-wound-but-let’s-shag moment always makes me want to throw things.
I recently read Susan Cliff’s INFILTRATION RESCUE from Harlequin’s Romantic Suspense line. I’ve read in different places that Cliff is Jill Sorenson writing under a different name, but I can’t find any actual confirmation of same—although Cliff’s suspenseful, action-oriented writing style is similar to that of Sorenson (one of my all-time favorites writers…I really miss her). Anyway, while INFILTRATION RESCUE was well-written with a propulsive plot, it dealt with white-supremacist militias which is definitely not something I want to voluntarily read about nowadays, plus the hero deceived the heroine in a major way by allowing her to believe a long-lost relative of hers was still alive, and I felt the heroine was too understanding & forgiving once she knew the truth.