As an FBI legal attache, Selena Shaw Jones travels to foreign countries to foster cooperation between them and the United States, and to develop counterterrorism programs. She accepted her latest assignment in the Middle Eastern country of Berzhaan as a means of escaping marital problems. Her husband Colin is a CIA contract agent, and their…
As I read Parallel Lies, I couldn’t get past the feeling that I should be enjoying it more than I was. It’s a fast read with a solid premise for an action/suspense book. But after a while, I realized I wasn’t all that invested in either the characters or the plot, which ultimately made for…
Target feels like a complete season of the TV show 24 in book form. It takes place within a single 24-hour period, and instead of chapters, the story is broken down into hours. As on the show, we follow our hero, in this case Army Intelligence officer Diana Lockworth, through a nonstop series of sometimes…
The Midas Trap is a globe-trotting adventure in the Indiana Jones mold, with a pair of archeologists in pursuit of an ancient treasure. It’s a very cool story and a fun read. The daughter of two archaeologists, Veronica Bright grew up traveling the Mediterranean with them from one ancient site to another. She was destined…
Ruth Wind’s Countdown is a brisk page-turner that I tore through in a couple of hours. The latest in the Athena Force miniseries, it has its flaws, but was also entertaining enough that they didn’t really bother me. In the attention-grabbing prologue, a bruised and bloody Kim Valenti arrives at FBI headquarters in Chicago late…
Harper Allen wrote some of my all-time favorite romances. She is noted for her emotional storytelling and strong, often tortured characters. When I heard she would be writing a book for Silhouette Bombshell, I was curious to see how her talents would translate to the line. Her first Bombshell, Payback, has its flaws, but it…
Boy, there really is no escape from Harlequin’s favorite clichés, is there? I would have thought that the usual series gimmicks have no place in the ultra-contemporary, (supposedly) kick-butt Silhouette Bombshell line, yet here we have a spy-themed secret child book. Or is it a secret-child-themed spy book? In any case, it’s not very good,…
Evelyn Vaughn has quickly become my favorite Bombshell author, and Contact offers ample proof why that is. The premise is a familiar one that’s been done a lot recently – usually quite poorly. I’ve been burned so much lately by similar books that I probably wouldn’t have bothered with this one if it had been…
The Huntress is a fast-paced vampire tale that delivers a potent combination of action and emotion. When she was a child, Camille Howard discovered the bodies of her murdered parents. As heir to their vast fortune, she was hounded by the paparazzi all through her childhood, even as she had to watch her parents’ killer…
Deceived is the seventh book in Silhouette Bombshell’s Athena Force miniseries. I stopped following the series after the second book, but this one promised a heroine who was a thief with paranormal abilities. That sounded right up my alley, so I figured I’d jump back in. While it was easy enough to understand without having…