One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: High Stakes, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 279 Pages
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me for review. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


Spending seven years in prison for a crime he didn't commit gave Tanner Bryant plenty of time to plan his revenge on the man who put him there. He wanted...needed Maurice Juneau to suffer as he suffered, and Tanner had every intention of making sure that happens.

Unfortunately, he hadn't planned on the young woman who stepped into his line of fire and took the bullet meant for Juneau. Nor had he planned on kidnapping her after he shot her. He's pretty sure that will come back to bite him, too, because Jess St. James may be tiny, but she is a force of nature. And he hasn't the first idea what to do with her.

Jess is frantic. Not only didn't her slimy boss give her the eight million dollars she needs to save her family, she got shot then kidnapped by the lunatic who shot her. Frankly, she shares Tanner Bryant's animosity for her boss. It's Maurice's fault her family has been abducted by a vicious criminal. But unlike Tanner, she needs the man alive to save her family.

Now she's got to partner up with the guy who put a bullet in her so she can get money from the man she works for. And she's running out of time. If she doesn't produce eight million dollars soon, her family will die. She's just going to have to convince Tanner that his revenge, however deserved it may be, is going to have to wait a little longer.


There are few things as nice for an avid reader like myself than having a favored author come out with a new series. I've been a fan of Adams' Adrenaline Highs series since the first book, so finding out about her new series made my day. I love Adams' writing style and her characters tend to be some of the best and most unique in the genre. Tanner and Jess were no exception.

Tanner was certainly a layered almost-antihero. It's not every day you get a hero that starts off a book shooting his heroine, but I sympathized with his past. His reaction to Jess, though, is what really charmed me. For all that he tried to be nothing more than a big, bad ex-con with an ax to grind, he was also a damaged guy who had lost everything. Jess' fateful stumble turned his carefully laid plans on their ear and kept him completely off balance, giving his initial attraction to her and his sympathy for her plight time to work on his conscience and reawaken his sense of integrity and honor.

I liked him a lot, and I appreciated the evolution of his character as the story progressed.

Jess was another bright spot. Though tiny in stature, she was fierce in her fight for her family and had no problem standing up for herself. I wasn't always thrilled with some of her emotional outbursts, but she was a nice fit for the more stoic Tanner. They had great chemistry and that was due in large part to the balance of strength and vulnerability she brought to the mix in their relationship.

As great as they were, though, had they been the sole focus of the narrative, I'm not sure I would have liked this book as much as I did. Oh, don't get me wrong, they were very likable, and they had some scorching sexy times I heartily enjoyed, but with a few exceptions, their storyline was fairly standard for what I've come to expect from Adams. What I didn't expect, and what really thrilled me, were the scenes with Jess' family.

Though they had secondary roles, Jess' family provided almost all of the more disturbing and suspenseful points of the plot. I loved Jess' parents, Jay and Terry. Their scenes were narrated with a slant from Jay's point of view and they stole the whole book. Between Jay's pride and love for Terry and their kids and Terry's indomitable strength of will, the characters and their scenes held me enthralled and drove all the darker elements of the suspense arc. They had so much presence on the page that they very well could have been the main characters. I loved them.

This was an action-packed and pulse-pounding read with some surprising, gasp-worthy twists and turns. I was caught off guard more than once by developments I hadn't seen coming and moved by characters who left an impression. I even had a total fan-girl squee moment with an awesome Adrenaline Highs series tie-in. Rock on Seger Hughes!

I can't say I was totally sold on every element in the story's premise, the family kidnapping in particular strained my willing suspension of disbelief given the motivation of the Bad Guy and sheer logistics, but the action itself, the scenes with Jess' family, and the arc of the romance between Tanner and Jess combined to provide a thrilling, sexy, and sometimes horrifying romantic suspense that kept me highly entertained. Adams may just have another hit series on her hands. One I plan on reading along with until the end.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Adrenaline Highs, Book 4
Rating: 2 Stars
Length: 293 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Private Investigator Troy Mills enjoys his job, cheating spouse cases notwithstanding. Unfortunately, he's on one such case, working undercover as a bodyguard for a popular movie producer while he waits to get the proof that the wife hired him to find. Proof that her husband is sleeping with America's Sweetheart, actress Julie Fraser.

He hadn't been working undercover long when he first meets the former child star under less than auspicious circumstances. He's "guarding" the producer at a red carpet event when Julie arrives, but she doesn't make it into the building before the shots ring out, sending the crowd into chaos and knocking the star off her feet. Racing to her side to pull her bleeding body out of the line of fire, he manages to help save her life and takes a bullet for his efforts.

Julie has been an actress long enough to have no more illusions about the darker side of fame, but she never expected to be gunned down for it. Recovering in the same hospital as the man responsible for that very recovery gives her a chance to thank him personally. Not only is he her hero, but he's also the sort of decent, honest man she wants to get to know even better.

When repeated attempts to end her life prove Julie wasn't just a victim of random violence, Troy finds himself on shaky ground. Telling her who he really is will do more than just piss her off and ruin any good feelings she may have towards him, it could very well put her in the crosshairs of a determined killer.


I've been a big fan of the Adrenaline Highs series since its inception, and the previous book, Dangerously Close, was my favorite to date. That's why it sucks so much to have to say that this one didn't appeal to me. I struggled with the narrative and the characters, as well as several elements of the plot, throughout most of the book.

Adams has always brought vibrantly flawed or damaged, believable, three-dimensional characters to life on the pages, characters who are uniquely individual and original. I just wasn't getting any of those vibes from either Julie or Troy in this book. Julie was a little too sweet, nice, caring, and perfect for my taste (which isn't bad so much as it is uninteresting) and Troy was a lying douchebag.

Um...yeah...there may be some personal bias bleeding over into that opinion, but I'm sorry, there were a dozen times he could have come clean with Julie before they slept together and the fact that he not only didn't tell her the truth, but perpetuated the lie throughout the story, made me very uncomfortable with him as the romantic hero and set up what felt like a cliched and predictable suspense climax late in the book.

And that's beside the point that I thought the premise for his investigation was a stretch. He's been hired by producer Ari's unhappy wife to get proof he's sleeping with Julie so the wife can divorce Ari's lecherous ass. That's fine on the surface, but I kept wondering why the wife's focus was so specific. Her husband is a sleaze who apparently bounces so many wannabe starlets on the "acting couch" that if extramarital sex were an Olympic event he'd have had the gold. If Troy was even remotely competent as an investigator he should have been able to provide proof of infidelity in no time. Mandating that the proof be her husband's adultery with Julie never made sense to me.

That was a pretty big stumbling block for my willing suspension of disbelief, and it caused problems for me as it related to the entire setup of the plot. There were also several plot threads, like what was going on between Julie's and Troy's assistants and the backstory of Troy's childhood, that weren't fleshed out enough to have any positive impact on the story. They just served to muddy the waters and bog down the pace of the suspense, and that pace was already pretty slow because of a narrative that was heavy on narration and light on dialogue.

There were good points, too, though. I did love the repartee between Troy and Julie in the beginning of the book, and I didn't dislike Julie as a character. She was cute and harmless, she just wasn't all that complex. My only issue with her as the romantic heroine, really, is that when compared to the other female leads in the series, she wasn't nearly as compelling or memorable.

Actually, that pretty much sums up my feelings about this book in general.

I've enjoyed this series, and have been highly entertained by Adams' deft talent for creating pulse-pounding romantic suspense. This book may not have been for me, but even the most adrenaline-pounding thrill ride in the world has its moments of down time. I have no doubt that the next in the series will have my adrenaline racing just as fast and high as did the three previous books.


The Adrenaline Highs Series:

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Adrenaline Highs, Book 3
Rating: 4.5 Stars
Length: 255 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.




Rock 'n Roll icon Seger Hughes has been a very, very bad boy.  Stumbling, sexing, and boozing his way through a brutal world tour, he's lucky if he can remember the lyrics to his songs when he's on stage. He sure can't remember the name of the barely legal girl he banged after a recent show.

He's burned out, and so disgusted with himself he can hardly meet his own eyes in the mirror. The love of music that once drove him like a demon is silent in his chest. He's desperate for a break, needs to step back and just breathe for awhile. Most of all, he needs to get away from himself.

Ashley Bristol knows a bit about playing the hand you're dealt, no matter how traumatic. She was collateral damage to a madman not too long ago and spent months in a coma because of it. Now, courtesy of a bee and the seaside stairs that lead up to her new home, Ashley takes a bad fall and ends up back in the hospital. And she's blind.

Refusing to succumb to panic or despair, Ashley returns to her beloved home intent on learning how to be independent. She had worked hard to renovate what was the guesthouse on a wealthy estate, and plans to continue to enjoy the fruits of her labor. She knows she has a neighbor, her realtor told her that's why she got such a deal on the house, but whomever it is has been a no-show since she moved in.

Mel Summers wants privacy. He wants to go unrecognized as rock's wild man while he gets his head on straight. He doesn't want to be Seger at all, actually. He certainly doesn't want a neighbor he hadn't known about or anticipated. But Ashley is like no woman Mel has ever met and her blindness allows him to keep his identity a secret. With Ashley he can just be a man.

He has no idea that someone is watching him very intently, watching as the friendship between him and Ashley grows and warms. That someone knows exactly who Mel Summers really is, and she wants nothing more than to prove to Seger that she's everything he will ever need in life. That she loves him. And she'll do whatever it takes to prove it.


I'm such a big fan of the Adrenaline Highs series. Adams brings a fresh voice and uncommon stories to the romantic suspense genre, satisfying readers with strong, unique characters thrust into life-threatening situations. Since Dangerous Race, the first in the series (which shouldn't be missed, though these books fare well as stand-alone reads), Adams has brought her happy readers into the lives of race car drivers, movie stunt women, and now rock stars. I've enjoyed every single pulse-pounding trip.

In this third installment, we're introduced to Seger Hughes, a flawed rock star with more than his share of self-made problems. He's spoiled and selfish, self-destructive and arrogant. He manages to take himself too seriously and life not seriously enough. In short, he's not exactly a nice guy, even after Ashley first wriggles her way into his life.

Ashley, on the other hand, is a force of nature. We first met her as Ellie's roommate and best friend in the previous book, Danger Zone. She's fought her way back to the land of the living and is doing fairly well until she falls down the stairs leading down to the beach from her new home and is, quite literally, struck blind. This is not a woman with the best luck in the world, by any means.

Despite that, and the occasional (completely understandable) moments of terror and despair that her blindness may be permanent, Ashley doesn't do self-pity or regret. She mourns the loss of her vision with dignity and moves forward, pressing relentlessly onward and drawing people into her sphere with her strength of character and generosity of spirit. I loved her as a secondary character in the previous book and I adored her - absolutely, positively adored her - in this one.

Frankly, Mel was a goner as soon as she set her almost completely sightless eyes on him. He just didn't know it.

The evolution of their relationship was definitely the high point of the book for me. It's become rare to find a story like this, one that so seamlessly introduces characters, develops a rock-solid friendship between them, then uses that friendship as the foundation for an incendiary love affair. It's a fantastic romance, and the characters are so modern and so clearly adult (if not always mature) in thought and deed that there's a wonderful earthy realism to every aspect of their interactions.

I'm slightly more circumspect when it comes to the suspense threads in this book. On one hand, I have to admire the utterly creepy and freakily believable motivations and actions of the antagonist. Who hasn't heard a horror story of a crazed stalker turned homicidal? You don't have to be a rock star to garner that level of crazy in your life.

On the other hand, the stalker-turned-killer villain has never been a particular favorite of mine in suspense fiction. Despite the solid execution of the storyline, I have to admit, the concept of a whack job stalking a rock star did seem a little clichéd to me. One of the few things in this series that ever has, actually.

Regardless, I think Adams wove those plot threads into the book with a masterful subtlety, including a few scenes from the point of view of the Bad Guy. It was startlingly effective at building the level of tension and suspense throughout the narrative. Not only because the chick is pathologically manipulative, delusional, and batshit crazy, but because when she worms her way into the lives of the main characters, they aren't thrilled with her as a person, but they don't know she's completely off her nut and dangerous as hell.

As critical elements go, mine turned out to be fairly minor in the end. I was so in love with the characters, so thrilled by Mel's evolution and the relationship between him and Ashley, and so impressed with the way in which Adams bled an increasing level of suspense and strain into the story, that the whole of the read was a major success for me. And this installment was my favorite of the three book (so far) series.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Adrenaline Highs, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 114,000 Words
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.


Being a stunt woman in Hollywood isn't the easiest or most reliable of occupations, but Ellie Morgan has built a solid reputation in her ten-year career. She's good at it. She enjoys it. But her newest gig as stunt double for the star of the movie about female race car driver Trace Bradshaw gave her the first opportunity to get behind the wheel of a race car. And the moment she's in the driver seat, screaming around the track at over a hundred miles an hour, Elle has a moment of perfect clarity. She knows, beyond question, what she was meant to do. She was born to race.

That thrill, that drive to follow a dream newly born but bright with hope, motivates Elle like nothing else. It makes her acknowledge that it's time for a change in her life. And it forces her to accept that to go in this particular direction with her career, she's going to have to tackle one particular demon that's haunted her since childhood.

But not before she wraps up this job, this movie.

Quinn Reynolds is fed up with his brother ducking him and he flew from London to California to tell him so, and to get Mac to finally agree to sell the company the brothers had inherited from their father. Quinn wants out. For two years he's slaved over that company, expanding it into the multi-million dollar industry leader that it is today, but Quinn's done. He's done with London. He's done with the company, and most important, he's done with the race cars they make and the entire sport of car racing. Facts he's more than willing to choke his brother with as soon as he gets him alone, a feat that seems far easier said than done.

Frustrated by his lack of success, desperate to unwind, he chats up a sexy blonde beauty at the bar he and his family had chosen to dine. Doesn't look like his luck is going any better with the fairer sex when she turns out to be the stunt woman doing all the dangerous stunts that his sister-in-law had lived through years ago. A stunt woman he had actually been introduced to that morning...and who had overheard him dish out to the lead actress the same cheesy line he'd just used on her.

So...it's California...where are all those earthquakes when you need the ground to open up and swallow you?

While the dance between a persistent man and a resistant woman heats up, a dark presence observes from the shadows. Plotting, planning, and fueled by rage, his target will have to be eliminated. And if that target can't seem to be more than five feet from the blonde floozy at any given time, he'll off her too. He will not be denied. Regardless of how much blood he has to spill or how many lives he has to take to get what he wants.


Dee J. Adams is back with another high octane romantic suspense that delivers thrills, chills, and scorching romance! I love her characters, her writing style, the uniqueness of the plots, and the visceral reality she manages to imbue in the descriptions of her books' settings and in her characters' lives. And with this book, she's created one of the most original connecting threads between two books in a series I've ever read. I thought the idea of the main characters meeting on location of the filming of a movie based on the characters and events in the first book was pretty damn ingenious. I loved that!

And since I'm spreading the love, I don't want to skimp on how much I adored Elle and appreciated her very real issues. Adams created the perfect emotional storm in Elle's past, paired it with a learning disorder, and came up with a character both believable and realistic. The emotional impacts of illiteracy and the glimpses of the necessary, labor-intensive work-arounds Elle must incorporate into her daily life to cope with her disability and hide it from the world were brilliant, poignant, and tragic.

Her illiteracy did not, however, define her as a person. Nor was it in any way used to make her seem less a person, not as intelligent, not as worthy. Quite the opposite, actually. I just loved her. She is strong, brutally disciplined, independent, confident...and also vulnerable, dependent, insecure. The sheer scope of her personality and the range of her emotional make-up was impressive.

Honestly, as much as I liked Quinn...eventually...he was a bit dimmer a star than Elle in this book for me. I didn't like him much at first, and had some big concerns with his seeming selfishness. He does show up at a movie set he knows his brother is working at and expects him to sort of drop everything to give him the time of day. That struck me as a bit entitled and immature. But then he started interacting with Elle and either my feelings warmed towards him or he was genuinely changed by his relationship with her, because he ended up being a solid, dependable man in Elle's life...and was both a softy and a real sweetheart. Oh...and sexy. He was definitely all about the sexy.

Together they burned up the pages and their romance sizzled even as it emotionally satisfied.

For all that I liked the plot, which I thought was more streamlined and focused than its predecessor, and thoroughly enjoyed the characters and their relationship, I have to admit, the book started a little slow for me. I was about a quarter of the way in before I felt it really hit its stride. Once it did, I was totally on board for the ride, but the developing pieces of the plot and the initial character introductions seemed a bit clunky for me up until then, and the story started off slightly slower-paced than I would have liked. After the shocking, heart-stopping beginning that was in Adams' debut, this one was far more sedate. A little too sedate.

I also had some trouble with the suspense plot threads in this book, one I didn't have in the previous book. While I felt the action scenes that resulted from the Bad Guys actions were awesome and the emotional impact from the damage BG inflicts was gut-wrenching, he never had much of a presence in the narrative. When he did, he didn't seem terribly effective, at least not in a way that inspired concern, fear, or horror in the lead characters. They didn't even know there was a threat until late in the book. While I suppose there was opportunity for readers to be concerned for the main characters, without the characters themselves being concerned for themselves or knowing of a particular threat, it didn't seem that suspenseful to me.

That issue didn't detract much from the read for me, though. I liked the characters too much, and was too swept up in their romance to care overmuch about it. Elle and Quinn were a delight to my romance-loving heart, and Adams writes hot, sensual sex scenes that burn the pages they grace. When combined with the freshness in the setting and story and the personal issues each of them face, Adams' sophomore effort is another heart-pounding thrill ride of pure reading entertainment.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: Adrenaline Highs, Book 1
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 295 Pages
Formats: Kindle
Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Carina Press via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.





Romantic Suspense Puts the Pedal to the Metal

Tracey Bradshaw was only nineteen when she learned that, at a whim, life can explode into shards of agony and loss...and in the briefest of instants a bright future can be ripped away from you forever.

She was doing what she loved, what she was born to do, and making a name for herself in the male-dominated racing world. Breaking track records left and right during her practices for an upcoming race, she was high on life, lucky in love with the man of her dreams, and had a future that looked like the brightest of stars. Until someone threw oil on the track she was circling at over two hundred miles an hour. Until her tires ran over that oil. Until she slid into an uncontrolled spin and slammed into the wall. Until her car disintegrated around her and her body was ravaged by steel and speed and brutal impact.

It took three long, grueling years to heal...as much as she ever would...from the massive injuries she suffered that day and another year before she was back at the track that so drastically altered her life. Intent on conquering the race that almost saw her death, she and her crew were running hell bent through the qualifying and practice rounds, everything working with the slick speed of a well-oiled machine. But the nightmare wasn't over for Tracey, and that lesson learned four years ago almost to the day reared its head for a refresher course.

Her crew chief and surrogate uncle dies under suspicious circumstances and before she knows it, she's faced with the fact that someone wants her out of commission at best, at worst, dead. With mere days before the biggest race of her career and still reeling from grief, Tracey has a new crew chief thrust upon her and her team. Mac Reynolds is bullheaded, opinionated, and wrong about how to run a race, and Tracey goes toe to toe with the man on almost every detail. She may be forced to suffer him, but she sure as hell doesn't plan to do it silently.

She knows the world is watching. She knows someone is intent on making sure she never races again. That's not enough to make Tracey quit. Nothing is. Not even a man who is too good looking to be trusted, too obstinate to be liked...and too seductive to be ignored.


Taking high octane romance and suspense to a whole other level, Adams goes green flag with a prologue that left me shaken and a story that both thrilled and chilled.

I loved the characters, especially Tracey (something I don't say often about the female leads). I couldn't help but adore her for her career choice and the strength and unflinching determination she showed on every single page. She wasn't perfect, but her imperfections shaped her into a realistically flawed and still slightly broken heroine who was ultimately sympathetic. Stubborn, prideful, and waspish at times, she was also fiercely devoted to those she cared about and had enough soft spots to smooth out the tomboy rough edges a little. I was thrilled with her as a character.

Mac was a slightly more traditional male romantic lead, with few surprises to his character, but I appreciated how Adams wrote and incorporated into that character his own weaknesses and flaws, and I especially appreciated that the man knew he was himself a little broken. His respect for Tracey was just a tiny bit tinted with envy and jealously and again I thought it was a particularly realistic and sympathetic portrayal of his character given defined history.

The sparks that fly between Tracey and Mac as they snipe and gripe at each other hide a deliciously banked sexuality that fought to erupt from them every time they butted heads. Which they did. All the time. Their relationship had the air of an enemies-to-lovers theme, though they were never really enemies, per se, but that aspect sure appealed to me.

What totally impressed me, and what made me hungry for more from Adams, was the crafty and deft hand she used on the racing elements of her story. I don't even like car racing but I'd be hard pressed living in the Daytona state not to at least catch snippets and hear things about it. Not enough to be an expert by any means, but enough to feel comfortable in saying Adams caught the spirit of racing from the perspectives of the pit, the track, and the stands with such casual ease that I forgot I wasn't a fan of the sport and not only enjoyed, but felt included in the world she created for her characters. Very nicely done.

I wasn't nearly as pleased with the secondary romance plot thread and never warmed to the storyline of Tracey's sister or her sister's friend. There was a disconnect for me somewhere in that thread and I was left feeling that some of the author's intention for that thread didn't quite make it to the page in a clear enough way for me to grasp it. Whether the sister's motivations and character development were kept murky for the sake of the suspense or the thread wasn't as developed as it should have been, I don't know, but the story would have been better for me if there had been a more clearly defined relationship evolution between her and Tracey and better transitions between the shifts in focus.

The main romance in the book worked slightly better for me than the suspense, which I felt stumbled a bit around the big reveal. Not enough to disappoint, but just enough to dim my enthusiasm a touch. Still, for a book surrounding a sport I don't favor and a world that is mostly foreign to me, Adams hit so many high notes that I was completely and thoroughly entertained by the read. I can't wait for the next in her Adrenaline Highs series and can only wish it would be out sooner than 2012. Like now. Now would be good.

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