Evaine's Books, Books and More Books

I am still in search of a gripping contemporary romantic suspense novel/series. 

Now here's the thing.  Julie Garwood is much beloved in Romancelandia so I felt pretty confident in trying her contemporary thrillers out.  And it didn't seem like they HAD to be read in order, so that was a plus as well, seeing as I got volumes 3 and 4 on sale.  Well... I was hoping for more.

In the beginning, it felt like one of Nora Roberts' suspense romances and I'm totally down with that.  But you know what?  It was written in 2002 and it sorta shows its age.  I'm not talking about the flip phones or anything like that, but more an underlying whisper of an attitude?  I dunno, but it bugged me. I never really warmed up to Avery, the heroine and I didn't fell like I saw enough of the hero, John Paul, to really gt to know him.  And I wanted to!  He was far more intriguing.

There were a lot of little things that I found bugged me, things that could have been fixed with a good editor.  For instance, the couple is travelling over a rough back road in their car, windows up, heater blowing and oops... Avery hears the very faint noise of running water - and it's very faint when they pull off the road, roll down the windows and turn off the heater, then the car.  COME ON! 

Now there was a nifty twist at the end that I didn't figure on.  The rest of the twists were pretty much obvious, but, okay, if the book is well written, the characters intriguing, I can live with that. But other than that, the ending was very non-satisfying because Avery and John Paul were NOT TOGETHER when the vanquishing of the bad guys happened.  Talk about a lunchbag letdown! 

Anyway, I'll read the other one I have and probably more in the series if they go on sale, but this sure didn't satisfy my itch for a gripping contemporary romantic suspense read.