RECOMMENDED: As Hard As It Gets by Laura Kaye is $1.99. This is book one of the Hard Ink series, which, according to GoodReads is about, “about four ex-soldiers who run a renegade operation against an organized crime ring out of the back of a tattoo shop.” Like you do.
I actually took back this weird hat/scarf/glove set my grandmother bought me last Christmas and bought this book with the store credit.
Trouble just walked into Nicholas Rixey's tattoo parlor. Becca Merritt is warm, sexy, wholesome–pure temptation to a very jaded Nick. He's left his military life behind to become co-owner of Hard Ink Tattoo, but Becca is his ex-commander's daughter.
Loyalty won't let him turn her away. Lust has plenty to do with it too.
With her brother presumed kidnapped, Becca needs Nick. She just wasn't expecting to want him so much. As their investigation turns into all-out war with an organized crime ring, only Nick can protect her. And only Becca can heal the scars no one else sees.
Desire is the easy part. Love is as hard as it gets. Good thing Nick is always up for a challenge…
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Hard As You Can by Laura Kaye is $1.99! This is the second book in the Hard Ink romantic suspense series and features another tattooed Navy SEAL hero. I don't think I'll ever get tired of those. Though the series has a plot which links all the books, some readers said this one could probably be read as a standalone book. While comments on GR praise the heroine for being strong and sensible, a few seemed disappointed at the lack of action. It has a 4.1-star rating on GR.
Guest reviewer, Amanda (a different one – we're everywhere!), gave it a B:
Overall I gave this book a B because I enjoyed the writing, the plot, the secondary characters, and the fact that I didn't want to put it down, but the lack of sufficient development between Sara/Crystal and Shane left me with a feeling of – oh, is that it?
Ever since hard-bodied, drop-dead-charming Shane McCallan strolled into the dance club where Crystal Dean works, he’s shown a knack for getting beneath her defenses. For her little sister’s sake, Crystal can’t get too close. Until her job and Shane’s mission intersect, and he reveals talents that go deeper than she could have guessed.
Shane would never turn his back on a friend in need, especially a former Special Forces teammate running a dangerous, off-the-books operation. Nor can he walk away from Crystal. The gorgeous waitress is hiding secrets she doesn't want him to uncover. Too bad. He’s exactly the man she needs to protect her sister, her life, and her heart. All he has to do is convince her that when something feels this good, you hold on as hard as you can—and never let go.
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Innocent as Sin by Elizabeth Lowell is $3.99! If you buy from Amazon, it's about twenty cents cheaper. This is the third book in Lowell's St. Kilda Consulting series and features a romance between a private banker heroine and an artist hero. That pairing actually seems really interesting, so the Bitchery will have to let me know how well that translates into the plot. This is a romantic suspense novel in which the murderer of our hero's twin is now after the heroine.
Kayla Shaw is a private banker in Arizona–smart and capable but underpaid and underappreciated. Rand McCree is a haunted man who paints landscapes in the Pacific Northwest, burning with a need for answers about the terrible event that shattered his world. They are two strangers with nothing in common . . . until their lives entwine–and explode.
On what at first appears to be an ordinary day, everything changes for Kayla, as she barely escapes a kidnapping attempt and finds herself accused of a shocking crime: the illegal laundering of hundreds of millions of dollars. Damned by lies and false “evidence,” she is trapped with no place to run.
After five agonizing years, Rand has finally been offered what he desires the most: the name of his twin brother's murderer. Hungry for vengeance, he accepts a job with St. Kilda Consulting that will place him in the killer's orbit . . . and tantalizingly close to Kayla Shaw. The cold-blooded international criminal responsible for Rand's brother's death has targeted Kayla as his next victim. Since she can't turn to the police, who believe she's guilty as sin, she must place her life in the hands of the shadowy, secretive man who has come out of nowhere to protect her.
Suspicious of each other, needing each other, they are two against the world–with unknown enemies on all sides and even the government itself suspect–as the violence of the past erupts in the present. And now innocence alone will not be enough to keep Kayla Shaw alive. . . .
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Personal Target by Kay Thomas is $1.99! This is the second book in her romantic suspense Elite Ops series. The first book, Hard Target ( A | BN | K ), is also on sale. Sidenote: I feel like they missed a great opportunity with the cover by not putting the bullet hole up a little bit and to the right. There seems to be a slight second chance romance too! Readers loved the steely hero and his growth as he opens up to the heroine, but many stress to read the series in order. It has a 4.1-star rating on GR.
AEGIS: an elite team of ex-military men working under the radar of most governments. If you have a problem no one else can handle, they can help.
A former SEAL and Black Ops specialist who left the CIA, Nick Donovan gave up a life on the edge to work in the private sector. But that didn't stop his enemies from coming after him—or his family. In a case of mistaken identity, a drug cartel kidnaps his sister-in-law's best friend … a woman from Nick's past.
One minute Jennifer Grayson is housesitting and the next she's abducted to a foreign brothel. Jennifer is planning her escape when her first “customer” arrives. Nick, the man who broke her heart years ago, has come to her rescue. Now, as they race for their lives, passion for each other reignites and old secrets resurface. Can Nick keep the woman he loves safe against an enemy with a personal vendetta?
Sara, Hard As It Gets is listing for 4.74 at Amazon….
oops, Amanda…sorry!
Ah, bugger. Price fairies must have missed that one. I’m sorry!
Innocent as Sin was not one of her best and actually pretty boring.
I liked Innocent as Sin, although it’s not my favourite of her books. I do find her romantic suspense heroes and heroines are generally very similar – naïve but brave heroine, cynical ex-military hero who will almost certainly use the phrase, “when things go from sugar to sh!t”.
With the artist hero/banker heroine thing – I don’t think they were that different personality-wise. It wasn’t a clash of the career-driven corporate and the hippie artist. She wasn’t a stuffy corporate type – from memory she owned (or had previously owned) a farm so she was also outdoorsy. He was ex-military and his art didn’t really play much part in the book, it was more his bodyguarding/fighting skills that were the focus.