One Good Book Deserves Another

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: McCormack Security Agency, Book 3
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 273 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.




When the father of a good friend is murdered and her friend is viciously attacked, MSA operations manager Vicky Hastings is determined to have her first field assignment be the undercover investigation that will identify and catch the perpetrators. There's just one small problem. Her partner for the mission is Ryan Brennan.

Okay...the MSA agent and undercover specialist is not a small problem. Sinfully sexy problem, yes. Small, no. Unfortunately, the gorgeous but frustrating man sees her only as a friend and is completely dismissive of her talents and her contributions to the agency. He's none too thrilled with the idea of being her partner on this assignment, either.

Well he'll just have to suck it up and deal with it, because Vicky is determined to catch the killers and gain Ryan's respect as a valued member of the MSA team. She just hopes she doesn't die trying.


There were things I liked about this third installment of Curtis' McCormack Security Agency series. Despite a limited amount of exposition to set this book into the series and a perplexing setup for the plot conflict (why was a security agency doing what police are supposed to do?), the story starts with a vicious killing that sets the sort of dark, edgy tone that I like in romantic suspense, and there's no doubt that the killers are Bad Guys riding the Crazy Train. That worked for me, as did several crafty, well-conceived and executed plot points in the suspense thread. Overall, I was surprised and pleased by the big picture of the conflict when it's finally revealed late in the book as it reaches its climax.

There were also elements of the romance that amused and charmed, and the cute, sometimes goofy, sexy heat between Vicky and Ryan made up for some of the less favorable points in their relationship. Despite a hearty dose of emotional immaturity on both their parts, and the confusing, difficult-to-believe premise of friendship between them (I never bought that setup, no matter what they said), they sort of worked for me as a romantic couple.

Unfortunately, the lighter tone of their relationship was at such odds with the severity of the opening sequences and the seriousness of the suspense, that I found the two elements jarring when taken together in context. Instead of blending and weaving together cohesively, the suspense threads and the romance threads never came together for me and ended up feeling very disparate throughout the book.

And I'm sorry, but I have to vent. When you and your partner have just found a viciously assaulted young woman bleeding out and dangerously near death, then you have to toss the dying woman over your shoulder to race away from the scene before the bomb that was planted kills you all, the very last thing on your mind should be the fine bum of your friend/partner.

I think Ryan having to tell himself not to stare at Vic's ass mere moments after bearing witness to horrific brutality and nearly getting blown to bits was supposed to be cute, but to me, it was so completely inappropriate in the moment that it didn't give me much of a first impression of Ryan's character.

That situation wasn't helped by the borderline incompetence and lack of professionalism evidenced by Vicky and Ryan once they were undercover. The whole premise of them going undercover as a married couple was a pretty heavy-handed and overused romantic suspense trope to begin with. And once they've inserted into the scenario, they spent so much time bickering at each other and flagrantly one-upping each other with ridiculous cover story that the investigation got lost in the shuffle.

I was also a little unhappy with Vicky's naiveté, nerves, and discomfort with Ryan's proximity once they were under. For someone who fought so hard to get where she was, claiming over and over that she was ready and more than able to do the job, desperate to prove herself, she came off as a complete powder puff at crunch time, or worse, a very disappointing gender stereotype.

Truth is, though, for me it was really all about the tone. Because of how the story started, the lighter elements weren't as successful for me as they could have been. On their own and in a different setting, I could really have enjoyed the romance arc and would have had more patience for the characters and their quirks.

Had the lighter romance been more in line with the darker suspense threads, this could have been a very solid read for me. As it is, the disparate pieces just didn't quite fit right. There were good points for sure, just not enough of them to elevate the story as a whole.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: McCormack Security Agency, Book 2
Rating: 4 Stars
Length: 157 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.




Etiquette coach Jessica Pennington makes a living being and teaching people to be polite and proper in every social situation. It's a surprisingly lucrative career. Perhaps so lucrative that now, just as she has her first book set to hit the shelves, Jessica has been targeted by a stalker whose threats are growing more and more dire.

The combination of his years in the military and his time with the elite McCormack Security Agency has bred a thirst for action and a need to make a difference into security specialist Noah Samuels. Just recently back at work after taking a bullet on his last job, he's going stir crazy as he rehabs his arm and waits for his next assignment. Serving as bodyguard for Miss Priss isn't even close to what he had in mind. Who in the hell would want a manners coach dead, anyway?

No sooner is he introduced to the pretty and uptight Jessica than Noah is snatching a suspicious box out of her hands and racing an explosive device away from the potential victims in her office. While he may have no idea why or who...yet, there is no longer any doubt that someone's obsession with the pretty but contained manners coach is deadly serious.

The longer he guards her and works on figuring out who is stalking her, the more Jess starts to get to him. Instead of an uptight, prissy, and demanding task master, he sees sides to Jess that are doing surprising things to areas of Noah's chest he thought long dead. Soon he's thinking that the job he originally pegged as babysitting until his arm is well enough to handle an important assignment may just be the most important assignment he'll ever have.


Guarding Jess was an entertaining, sexy, suspenseful surprise. I wasn't crazy about Curtis' series debut Viper's Kiss, which I felt crossed the line of believability and tread dangerously close to ridiculous in places. This second book managed to keep the quirk factor that appealed in the first book, had great characters with strong chemistry and a plot that delivered an ever-intensifying level of danger and suspense, but stayed within the bounds of plausible.

Noah and Jess were a fun couple. Noah had tall, gorgeous, and broody down pat. Perhaps he was relatively stereotypical for the genre (how many ex-Special Forces security agents does that make in the genre, now, a bazillion?), but he had a few personal issues and emotional baggage that set up some internal conflicts for the character that fit well with the storyline. Jess had layers and depth that pushed her character beyond Miss Priss into a caring, down-to-earth woman with a heck of a shy side. I loved her backstory and the details that fleshed her out into a likable, intelligent woman with flaws and insecurities.

Individually they were each strong enough for their roles as romantic leads. Together their relationship had some adorable and fun moments, plenty of sizzling-hot sexy moments, and a good number of solid story-progression moments to round it all out. The romance plot threads were woven together nicely with the suspense and their relationship evolved in a fairly realistic time frame, which was a bit of a surprise given the length of the book.

I really loved the suspense plotline, too. Curtis kicks it off strong, then builds it throughout the narrative, slowly and steadily increasing the threat level and danger until it reaches an intense climax. It lacked a little of the complexity of some of my favorites in the genre, and I had the Bad Guy pegged from the moment the character was introduced, but other story elements were a surprise and overall the storyline avoided much of the sort of cliché that drives me a little batty. It was a strong and solid, if straightforward, suspense.

This was slightly more than a four star read for me. I would have liked just a bit more originality in Noah's character, more involvement with secondary and ancillary characters, and a few more layers in the plot. Given the page count, though, and what was included in the story, this was a very satisfying read. One that was far above that of its predecessor in many ways, not the least of which was my ability to maintain a willing suspension of disbelief.

Yes, it was a little cheesy in places (nothing I found too egregious), and it had moments that were lighter in tone than others. It was, though, a good suspense and a sexy romance with two characters I enjoyed very much. If this second book is any indication of the direction this series is headed in, I will definitely be along for the ride.

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: McCormack Security Agency, Book 1
Rating: 3 Stars
Length: 53,000 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.



Maggie Kincaid isn't having a good week. She's been forced to disguise herself as an old woman to sneak past a throng of fans just to get to her library job at the University of Washington. They're not her fans, per se, though they don't know that. It's just her rotten luck that a woman bearing enough resemblance to Maggie to be her doppelganger posed nude as Miss April Hotrod in a popular...and apparently well-circulated calendar.

Her mother certainly wasn't amused.

Little did Maggie know that the abject mortification caused by the...um...lovely Ms. Kandy Karamel (there was a website, too) would actually be the highlight of her week. It went steadily and horrifyingly downhill from there.

Arrested, witness to double homicide, kidnapped, almost murdered, forced to nearly kill in self defense, kidnapped again, held in custody by a gorgeous security agent she could just lick up like sweet cream (that part's not so bad), condemned for espionage, almost killed - again...and again, accused of treason, and more. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Except for that whole gorgeous security agent thing. The big jerk may think she's the most obvious and stupid spy in history, but he's got one fine form.

Said big jerk Luke Fletcher is convinced he's finally apprehended one of the world's most notorious spies, code name: Viper. They have Viper on tape murdering a man and stealing highly classified and sensitive materials that could be used against the country and the men and women who fight for it. Luke's seen the tapes. Studied them. And has no doubt Maggie Kincaid is the cold-blooded, murdering spy he's been tracking. Even her own laptop shows quite clearly that she was the one who hacked into the classified files prior to the theft. Every single scrap of evidence points directly at the delicious...er...devious Maggie.

And all the protests that spring from that hot, wet, gorgeous mouth of hers...a mouth he could easily and happily imagine around his...um...weapon of mass destruction...won't save her ass....that tight, luscious ass of hers... Uh, yeah - he's focused and single-minded in his determination to bring Maggie Kincaid down. By any means necessary.


It's not that Curtis isn't a decent author, or that the book showed a lack of skill. In fact, most of Viper's Kiss is a fast-moving, action-packed, lusty, wild ride. It's skewed heavily towards the lighter, more humorous end of the romantic suspense sub-genre, of course, and there were parts that felt like farce - fun on the surface, not a lot of depth beneath. But that's fine - it's not always to my personal tastes, maybe, but I recognized it for what it was and could accept that. Obviously so, or I wouldn't have considered this a three star book.

No, my problems came not so much from the execution of the story, but from the concept behind it. There were just too many coincidences, too many clichés, too many bad ideas. Does the world really need one more security/bodyguard/protection company staffed by ex-Special Forces military types? They're as ubiquitous as paranormals in New Orleans. Hell, I've read books where the paranormals in New Orleans were the ex-Special Forces military-type security agents. It's been done before.

I'm sorry to say it's been done better. Aspects of this book were very ill-defined. It was never made clear just what sort of security agency would send out agents to track down spies and get smack in the middle of an investigation that included the brutal murder of two police officers without once having to answer to the cops. Or even come face-to-face with one. That's FBI-level stuff at the very least, CIA more likely, not a group with a questionable agenda and undefined government connections, one who seems to be roughly akin to highly skilled bounty hunters but who acts like Fed. One with agents, I have to say, who are really bad at their jobs.

I mean, seriously, the egregiously large number of things that should have been verified and investigated before detaining a U.S. citizen and accusing her of murder and treason were fairly astounding. Not to mention how quickly and often a rank amateur gave three decorated military men the slip. The sheer implausibility of it all was more than I could bear.

I need a book to be at least vaguely believable to enjoy it. Maybe that's odd, given my reading preferences, but even the most wildly fantastical world ruled by the wickedest mystical elements has to make sense within its own mythos to work for me. Viper's Kiss wasn't badly written, nor was the story devoid of high points. For me, though, there were just way too many things that prevented me from maintaining a willing suspension of disbelief.