Holly’s review of Cutting Loose (Steele Street, Book 8 ) by Tara Janzen
Romantic suspense released 26 Dec 07 by Dell

Tara Janzen has become like crack for me. There isn’t much substance (meaning I have to suspend all disbelief to buy what she’s selling), and the love angles generally don’t work for me (or at least in this case the love angle didn’t work) but I keep reading them, and liking them, and wanting more of them. I think I’m addicted.

I liked Zach. I liked Lily. But I didn’t really buy that they loved each other.

Their story began in On the Loose, the book that came out before this one. When I found out this book would be about them, I was anxious to read it, because they intrigued me. While the action and plot were good, I just didn’t feel that the relationship between the two was fully explored. In the past, Tara Janzen has always jumped around a lot, and that’s worked fine for me. But I think in this case it was a detriment to the overall love story. Every time I started to get into Zach and Lily as a couple, the focus would shift and I’d lose it. What saved previous stories really seemed to kill this one.

I had a hard time believing two people who spent less than a few days together were truly in love, the kind of love that lasts forever and ever amen.  More like lust, with a good case of liking thrown in.  Had Janzen kept the focus on Zack and Lily, rather than on all the characters from previous books, and the secondary story between Red Dog’s brother and Cherie, I think the love angle would have worked better.

I was excited to see the crew from Steele Street again, however. I missed them in the last book, though I wish Superman would have been around, instead of Dylan. The action was great, car chases, stray bullets, quick, witty dialogue.

I’ll definitely be picking up the next book, but I think it’s more because my inner child (the one who grew up with 4 uncles who loved fast cars and guns) wants the action, not because my romantic side wants a love story.

Grade: B

From the back cover:

She’s the unsuspecting beauty with something everybody wants.  He’s the secret agent in so deep nobody can find him.  Until now…

CIA operative Zachary Prade made his name taking out world threats. But now he’s tracking a very different kind of danger and her name is Lily Robbins. Lily holds the key to a valuable encoded file that’s about to fall into the wrong hands. All Zach has to do is retrieve the key and forget the rain-soaked beauty who came to his Central American plantation seeking shelter from more than the weather.

Lily knows him as Alejandro Campos, the seductive drug lord who saved her life. They met when she traveled to El Salvador to film a documentary…and got caught in the middle of a nasty drug-and-guerrilla war. Now, back in the U.S., hunted by spooks and assassins, Lily has to trust Campos again. Except his name isn’t Campos, and he’s arousing a passion so hot it’s criminal. That is, if they can survive long enough to enjoy it…

Read an excerpt.

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