C+
Genre: Romantic Suspense, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by KnitterJacqui. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romantic Suspense category.
The summary:
She’s got a broken heart…
and a fully loaded arsenal….
Ex–army ranger Jim Morgan leads a team of elite mercenaries, but eighteen years ago in Paris, he was part of a black ops unit whose mission was to hunt down a rogue operative. In order to trap the criminal, Jim seduced Noelle, the man’s daughter—a ruthless act that cost him the love of his life and turned her into a mortal enemy. Now he can’t trust her, but he still desires her. He also needs her help….
Older, wiser, and unwilling to play the fool again, Noelle runs a group of highly skilled assassins. And she’s just been offered the hit of the century: Eliminate Jim Morgan. History gives them no reason to trust each other, but with their lives in jeopardy at the hands of a common enemy, the lines between love and hate are soon blurred. Now Noelle and Jim must face the past if they want to have a future—let alone a future together.
Here is KnitterJacqui's review:
This is a hard review to write. I read this book several weeks ago. It had the misfortune of coming to the top of my TBR list at a time when I was crazy busy at work and could only read in fits and starts. I would get through only a few paragraphs at a time before keeling over in exhaustion. So I felt like I never got any momentum going and the book didn’t sweep me along or suck me in. This could be the fault of the book. Or it could be my fault because I just couldn’t do it justice. It’s hard to say. And I haven’t had time to re-read it in preparation for this review. Keep this in mind when reading my review…
The story: The premise of a group of female operatives (a.k.a. assassins), run by our heroine Noelle, is unusual. Noelle is a tough, no-nonsense heroine who can take care of herself. Despite her abusive past, she isn’t looking to be “fixed” by the hero, Jim Morgan. This makes her an appealing heroine in many respects, though I did question the fact that her horrendous history of physical and sexual abuse didn’t seem to leave any residual trauma, at least that I noticed. Jim is the head of his own group of mercenaries or super-spies (or something), a number of whom have been the subject of previous books in this series. I’m not really sure what else to say about Jim because, as I say below, I never really got an in-depth sense of Jim as a character.
The premise of the book relates to a “hit” taken out on Jim by an unknown client. The “hit” is supposed to be performed by Noelle. Of course, she doesn’t go through with it. Jim and Noelle have a “past” in which they were former lovers before things went horribly wrong, as we learn from a number of flashbacks. Despite lingering bitterness (i.e. they now hate each other), she teams up with Jim to find out who is trying to kill him and why. This collaboration leads them into a kind of lust/hate thing that has its origins in the “past”. The “past” has to be sorted out before they can move on to any kind of HEA.
In the meantime, they spend some time (though perhaps not as much as one might think they should) tracking down the bad guy and making sure that Jim gets to stay alive for that HEA.
The good: Elle Kennedy writes well and I generally find her writing to be seamless, without glaring grammatical or stylistic quirks. Although this is the fifth book (I think?) in a series, it reads fine as a stand-alone. I did read the first one but have read none of the others in between the first and this book. There are some interactions between characters who clearly met and paired up in a previous book, but I didn’t feel as if I was missing anything by jumping in late in the series.
There is quite a bit of suspension of disbelief required to buy into this story, but I’ve definitely read less believable romantic suspense novels – or at least, it wasn’t too hard to just go along with it. Despite reading in fits and starts, I found the story engaging.
The not-so-good: There are some crazy-sauce aspects to this story involving things like long-lost daughters, creepy arms dealers, fires, explosions, crashing airplanes, etc. It is a bit over the top. Even the premise of two separate mercenary groups, one made up of men and the other of women, with some cross-pollination due to romantic involvements, is a bit nuts. But kudos to Ms. Kennedy for mostly making it into a half-decent story.
The character development of Jim and Noelle was not very deep or nuanced. Noelle has quite a bit of back-story. But it is hard to connect this back story to the character that she is in present day. Moreover, the reason why Noelle bears so much animosity towards Jim doesn’t seem very believable. And in dealing with this (and with him), she comes across as kind of immature, with reactions that are overblown or that could be resolved by simply communicating a bit better.
As for Jim, I don’t really feel as if we learn much about him at all. I struggled with the fact that, although he is supposed to be the invincible team leader for his group of operatives, he seemed to be airing the dirty linen of his personal life in front of his team in a big way, including having noisy, angry sex with Noelle all night in a room next to the rooms where key members of his team were staying. This made me a bit uneasy about his credibility as a leader, though maybe I am just prudish.
Above all, it is difficult to see why Jim and Noelle belong together romantically since they spend most of the book not liking each other because of the “past” and just having lots of angry sex. We are told that they met and fell in love nineteen years previously, so maybe that is supposed to be a short-cut to love in the present day. But that love was supposedly cut off at the knees by the big falling-out/betrayal. Nineteen years following a betrayal is a VERY long time. I’m not sure how much common ground two people can have after that period of time.
Finally, the story balance seemed off to me – a lot of time seems to be spent on dealing with personal issues, such as the relationship between Jim and Noelle and issues involving other members of the team. This seemed disproportionate to the amount of time spent devoted to the suspense part of the plot. And I confess that – perhaps due to my piecemeal reading approach to this book – I’m not entirely sure the suspense plot made much sense to me.
Anyway, I don’t have much more to say. My overall reaction was that the book was OK, but forgettable. This reaction may just be a further symptom that my previous love affair with romantic suspense has gone sour and that this type of story just isn’t for me anymore. (The romantic suspense title I reviewed last year for the RITA Challenge didn’t work for me at all). It may be the fault of the fact that I couldn’t just sit and read this book in one sitting and that this book is better appreciated with an opportunity to immerse oneself in the story.
Whatever the cause, I have to go with this reaction and give it a C+.
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I agree- this was a miss for me, too. The story was convoluted and fell a little flat. Some of the others in this series have been more fun… I love the sub-plot about the chemistry between two of Jim’s operatives (will avoid spoilers).
Okay, 19 years is a long time after a betrayal. Nice review with many good points, Jacqui.
Personally, I prefer Elle Kennedy’s Out of Uniform series to the romantic suspense. I agree on her writing, it is seamless. I think she does a great job of creating characters you want to follow through their adventures.