Joshua Watt's mission is simple: Bring Lise home for Thanksgiving or he'll never hear the end of it from his sister. He's spent months trying to forget the taste of her lips, but the minute he sees the fear in Lise's eyes, the former Army Ranger takes control. His mission: Protect Lise and try to keep his personal feelings out of it. Because if there's one thing he's learned, it's that ex and work don't mix. So far...
Comment: I had this book in the shelf since 2008. I got it, as I had many others, because if I liked I would have others to read too, and since it had a romance as well, I was all for it. Well, the idea of this book isn't bad, and it's something seen in countless other books, but I will say I was not dazzled by it.
Lisa Barton is a writer and she has published some books already but now she has a stalker. Someone made it obvious she was being watched in her home in Texas, and have even threatened her family, so Lisa decides to move to Seattle, so that her family would not be exposed to danger. Things have become so stressful and Lisa declined so many family invitations since then that her sister in law contacted her brother to investigate. Joshua Watt is a former Ranger and now works in "private consultations" and when his sister married Lisa's brother, they shared a moment. Thinking Lisa went away so she didn't have to see him, he decides to go after her and ends up helping. But will the stalker balk at this new target?
Honestly, just the idea that a guy who shared a kiss or whatever it was, with a shy woman, at a wedding, believes she would change her life and change states because of her reaction to him makes me feel a little annoyed, so the reading experience wasn't that great. I mean, if Lisa's timidity was a significant part of her personality or if combined with the stalker situation made for some sort of psychological condition, I might accept it, but truly, the base for the romance was extremely silly to me.
Actually, the premise of this book isn't that bad. There are many books out there that feature a military guy and a heroine joining forces somehow to defeat an enemy. The author also included a few paragraphs here and there from the villain's POV and he seemed to be such a... caricature, that I found his voice to be funny silly, and that removed tension and urgency from what was happening. In fact, from an early point on, it seemed the story would be only about the romance and how long would they last until they admitted they were attracted to one another.
This proved to be right because we are told that Lisa is shy, wasn't the most social of people and her immediate connection with Joshua scared her a little. However, she knew he would not be the commitment type and then the stalker thing prompted her to move. The issue for me is that as soon as he finds her and decides to help when he learns about her real motive to have moved, it's as if what had been a key element of her personality wasn't important anymore and they quickly banter and exchange sexual innuendos. When they become intimate, after a slightly initial reticence, Lisa turns into this sexually addicted person and I just cannot accept her change in personality.
We are also told that Joshua had a bad experience with love, was disappointed with someone he considered a friend, and this shaped up his decision to keep women away and not believing in love. There is also a bit of that old "I'm not worthy" idea, but I won't even go there. Of course, however, we know Lisa and Joshua really like each other and despite all their inner thoughts and some conversation, they become lovers pretty soon and they have sex very often, especially if one thinks they were still going on about distracting the stalker and trying to catch him.
To me, things got even worse, in terms of plausibility, when Joshua declares his eternal love at the end, after most of the books claiming he would not love Lisa, and how quick the situation they were in proved to them they could make it. But even more unlikely was how they catch the stalker (with the help of two of Joshua's friends, protagonists of the future books) so easily, so casually and how easy it was for the FBI to fix what was necessary after repeated mentions of not reaching them because the guy's methods weren't always "that legal".
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