Sunday, August 21, 2011

Review: In the Line of Fire by Jennifer LaBrecque

Title: In the Line of Fire
Series: Uniformly Hot!
Author: Jennifer LaBrecque
Read copy: eBook
Published: March 1, 2011
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1426887833
ISBN-13: 9781426887833

Subject: Colton Sawyer, Army Officer.

Current Status: Home on leave. About to engage in a battle for his heart.

Mission: Keep his honor intact.

Obstacle: Runaway bride—and first love!—Andi Mitchell.

Colton respects one creed: Duty and honor above all. So he's torn when sweet, sexy Andi asks his help in fleeing from her intended groom. But her big, brown-eyed plea is so convincing...

Unfortunately, Andi is his best friend's little sister. Translation? Hands off, soldier! But that's a damn hard thing to do. Because this sexy, utterly absorbing woman is the only one he wants—the one he's always wanted. How can he possibly resist her when they're sharing hotel rooms…and their bodies?

Battle zones are nothing compared to this. Colton's heart is directly in the line of fire. So what else can he do but launch a counterattack…a purely physical one? Because if you can't beat 'em...


My rating:

The beginning was simply idiotic. I know Ms. LaBrecque had to think of something to make the plot plausible, but sorry, the beginning was simply idiotic.

By reading the blurb I thought the hero was saving the heroine from an unwanted marriage, which could be plausible if this were a historical romance. But this being a contemporary romance, where no one forces someone to get married - unless you’re reading a Harlequin/Silhouette story - I just didn’t know how things might turn out.

It turned out the bride, having had a crush on the hero, sees him walk along a garden path - he came to escort her to the altar in her brother’s stead - and realizes she wasn’t harboring a mere crush, but a full-blown love and decides she cannot marry the guy she’s been engaged for a year, because she doesn’t love him. Uhm, couldn’t she have decided that one earlier on? If you don’t love someone, you don’t get engaged!
Then the heroine climbs down the bathroom window and “blackmails” the hero to get her out of there, telling him only she cannot get married. The hero, naturally, thinks the guy was beating her up, but she denies such claims, says nothing more, and the hero actually gets her out of there.

Preposterous, right. Wrong, because it also turns out the hero’s been all ga-ga over the heroine ever since he stopped looking at her as his best friend’s younger sister (which is a long time ago), so he’s more than happy to get her out of there.

What follows is a series of formulaic Blaze events, that taken without the beginning would’ve worked nicely, but having read the beginning of the story - well, reading a story from the beginning is a must, just didn’t inspire what the author wanted them to inspire.

I’ve heard of an ending ruining a story for someone, this was the first time a beginning did something like that for me.



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