2 posts tagged “action”
To be honest, the only reason I picked these two books up at a thrift store was that I was pretty sure I could swap these on paperbackswap. So I admit I wasn't really into these from the get go, but I do like to give things a chance, which is why I read them. What ended up happening is I read about 25% of the book, then skimmed, read a bit more, skimmed on till the end.
Conclusion - If you want a not-serious read, with lots of sex and some cheesy bits, this is for you. I can see these as books someone would find fun, but that just don't do it for me.
I would say that I found small redeeming parts to both books. Ready started off interesting but after chapter one it went downhill. This was about Lise Barton, an author of "kickass women's fiction" who is being stalked. She was afraid her stalker (who calls himself Nemesis) was going to hurt her brother's family so she left them without a very good explanation and moved to Seattle, where her stalker kept up his disturbing game until our hero Joshua Watt shows up to ask why she won't see her family for Thanksgiving. And Able is the third book in the series and focuses on a friend of the hero in book 1 (Ready) - Brett Adams. This time Claire Sharp, a poor part-time student and worker at an assisted living facility is running into problems when someone broke into the house she was renting and tried to kill her. Brett is a friend and feels like he must protect her and find out who is behind the attack. This one had a pretty decent sparring between the two main characters in the first part but it sort of went away.
I guess the problems for me are the following. And here I get pretty bitchy. Look away if you liked these books because it's not pretty:
The main characters are cliched. The men are "badass mercenaries" who have some silly reason for not wanting to be committed, but everytime they see the heroine, their peni get all hard and they are suddenly unaware of their surroundings because they are so into the woman that they just forget their basic training. The women are loners with hardly any friends who need protection and for some reason the police aren't helping/helpful, and the women are unaware of their sexiness because they are insecure. Also even though the women are in their mid-twenties they aren't that experienced with sex and are amazed they feel anything with the mens. And the mens are of course full of experience but it was never like this with anyone else. Yeah. And they explain to the women what the names of the thing they just did was (deep throat) and how they read it in a book but never tried it before. These sex scenes are about 20 pages or so long. I was bored. 20 pages? On and on.. still having sex.. I guess I'm not in the target audience because long sex scenes do not thrill me at all. Also there are sex scenes in water which I'm always disturbed by because I think - urinary tract infection, and that must be uncomfy!! Also the men call each other by code names even though they have known each other for years and years. Code names which are pretty silly - Wolf (tactics), Nitro (bomb expert) and Hotwire (computers). They are very serious about the code names. These are not tongue-in-cheek at all! Wolf has a bedspread on his king sized bed of a wolf that was painted by Hotwire. Also not tongue-in-cheek! But in the book, it's sexy because when Lise first sees it she thinks it's beautiful and is amazed that the wolf on the bedspread looks like Joshua. HUH? How does a man look like a picture of a wolf, even in the eyes? I had a really hard time believing that. Actually a whole bunch of things I just talked about I found hard to believe.
P.S. Wolf = Joshua (book 1 - Ready) , Hotwire = Brett (book3 And Able). Book 2 was Willing, which stars Nitro and which I didn't pick up.
Another problem was that the books focussed so much on the interaction between the two main characters I just felt bored after a while. There were too many contrived scenarios. The scenes weren't that interesting - someone's house most of the time. The bad guys weren't interesting - crazy one dimensional baddies who got caught pretty easily. Then to top it off, the two main characters weren't that interesting either.
The author also kept breaking up the chapters in the weirdest places - mid conversation. Why?
Finally - I guess this is a spoiler for both so behind a gray block, select to read it:
In the end of BOTH BOOKS - the happy ending involves pregnancy. Ug. Sorry, I guess this is just the ultimate cliche for me. And of course this man who has so much trouble admitting to wanting to commit is overJOYed over a kid!? Seemed strangely easy after the fuss through the whole book.
Ah.. this book was delightful because I like a smart heroine. And Nadia Stafford is a smart woman; she has to be, she's a hitman. People just don't last long in that business without a brains. Either you get caught or you get killed.
Nadia, or "Dee" (as she is called by other assassins who don't know her real name), was once a cop, born into a family of cops. After a traumatic childhood event, all it took for Nadia to take things into her own hands was one criminal scumbag who had hurt a young girl. Hardly any of her friends and family stuck around her after that. She had to leave the force, and now runs a hunting lodge, secretly making money on the side for killing people who deserve it. Clearly she has issues brimming under the surface, but it may be her passion that makes her a good hitman. In Exit Strategy, her talent catches the eye of others. Her passion is also what makes her agree to join a team of other hitmen who are going after one of their own. A professional killer has turned into a serial killer, and it has caused a shakedown from the law against the whole profession.
Lazy bullet time:
- This is NOT a paranormal, even though Kelley Armstrong is well known for her paranormal series, the Women of the Otherworld. I looked at the author's website and book 2 *looks* like it is coming out in September this year and will be called Made to be Broken. I'm not sure about this because Amazon UK has a whole list of authors under that title; maybe it's an anthology?
- Almost everyone in this book: is the strong silent type. Even Nadia. When she's chattering, she's usually playing a role. It's interesting how subtle the communication is between assassins. Facial expressions and head movements mean more than words. Actions speak loudest.
- The whole profession: REALLY interesting to read about. Especially things like trying to retire or having a family. No one trusts anyone, everyone has a hidden real identity, everyone's motives are suspect.. most people never retire: they die. And almost no one has a family, they are all loners - trying to have a family never seems to work out. So passing things along to the new generation usually happens in a mentor-mentee relationship, not through children.
- The book is in a mostly first person point of view, with the attention mostly on Nadia. But sometimes the focus shifts to the killer or his victims. This could fall flat, but in Exit Strategy, it was powerfully done.
- Finally, there is a very subtle hint of a romance (I am thinking love triangle) in this book. It is barely even there, it's all in the silent communication. One of the men is clearly interested, the other one is so subtle about it that even smart Nadia is oblivious. That's my take. I really want to know what happens in book 2.
- Excerpts: Chapter 1, Chapter 2
