LynneC’s review of Tempted by His Target by Jill Sorenson
Romantic Suspense published by Harlequin 20 Sep 11
This book hits the spot in many ways. It’s a straightforward road book with a chase thrown in. The characters are interesting and appealing, and they don’t do anything stupid enough to make you want to throw the book across the room. That is a win. Another is that the book kept me engrossed until the end, without me checking the page count or anything else.
Isabel is on the run. She used to be a fun-loving party girl, but things went wrong, and now she’s in Mexico, scraping by on a living as a journalist and surfing. Isabel loves surfing. Brandon is looking for Isabel. He’s a US Deputy Marshall, (shades of Timothy Oliphant, yum!) and he’s been tasked to find her. He surfs, too, so that’s how he makes the connection. Then the baddies catch up with them, and they have to run. That’s about it, really, for the plot.
Yay, I say. The simple plot gives Ms. Sorenson time to develop the characters and put in enough detail to make you feel the heat of Mexico and the desperation. Isabel doesn’t entirely trust Brandon, even though she’s attracted to him, and she does try to do something about it at a point in the story where many authors would make their heroines do something stupid just to move the plot along. She doesn’t. She does something, but she knows what she’s doing, and she could have gotten away with it, but—that would be telling. Read the book and find out.
Isabel doesn’t know who Brandon is or why he’s interested in her, and she has too much nous to take him at face value, although at first they don’t have a lot of time for idle chitchat. She doesn’t realize that Brandon already knows her secret. Brandon has his feelings of guilt to cope with, along with the problem that if he fraternizies with her, it puts his job in jeopardy. Isabel is a “person of interest” and being attracted to his targets is something Brandon doesn’t do. And he has his preconception of her as a feckless party girl who popped pills and swigged alcohol, a model who showed as much of her body as she had to for her assignments. He carries a picture from her modelling days in his bag, but later dumps the picture, not just because she might see it and twig to the fact that he knew her identity before he met her, but also because the Isabel he now knows isn’t like the one in the picture. Isabel has learned more than life-saving techniques in her two years on the run. She is beginning to learn her self-worth and her place in the world outside the wealthy party crowd.
I’m a sucker for a road book, and this is a good one. Brandon and Isabel come to an understanding of each other, although they don’t trust each other completely until the end. But they get off on each other, and there are complications along the way that ensure the tension is kept tight and high. The reason for the chase is obvious and believable and the chase itself is exciting and visceral.
This book hits the spot in many ways. It’s a straightforward road book with a chase thrown in. The characters are interesting and appealing, and they don’t do anything stupid enough to make you want to throw the book across the room. That is a win. Another is that the book kept me engrossed until the end, without me checking the page count or anything else.
If I have a caveat, it’s that sometimes the narration is a little too crisp, a little uninvolved, but I can’t say that affected me a huge amount, or that I cared enough to stop reading. On the whole I had a good time with this book, and it’s definitely worth your time.
Grade: B
Summary:
Wanted for the murder of a Mexican drug lord’s son, party girl Isabel Sanborn fled to Oaxaca. Now she owes her life to Brandon Knox, a passing tourist who just saved her from a hit man.
But Knox is no accidental hero—he’s an undercover U.S. marshal assigned to bring Isabel to justice. Instead, wanting to protect her, he joins her on the lam…with cartel goons and corrupt police in hot pursuit!
And as the danger escalates, sexual tension sizzles. For the first time in his career, Brandon considers jeopardizing his mission to safeguard his target. And though Isabel can elude the authorities, she can’t escape her feelings….
Read an excerpt.
