LynneC’s review of His Kind of Trouble by Samantha Hunter
Contemporary Romance published by Harlequin Blaze 18 Dec 12
Ana is a chef with a top-rated TV reality show. Chance is one of the Berringer brothers and he’s a security expert. He’s asked to act as bodyguard for Ana after she’s received some worrying threats to her safety. He accompanies her back to her home in Mexico, where he meets her family and protects her. That’s about it.
If the characters had been more interesting or more developed, then this would have been an interesting, hot read. However, it never really gets going and some of the choices the characters made are dubious, to say the least. Chance is a controlling jerk, but he does have some reason where Ana’s concerned, and Ana behaves like an irritating teenager.
Ana supports her family in Mexico, but there’s little indication of how good a chef she is or how great a TV personality she is. If we’d seen any of her stage persona or her show on the page, that might have helped to make her more believable. As it is, it’s sketchily and not too believably drawn in. So, despite receiving threats and knowing she’s a target, she decides to go home to Mexico, to a place dominated by drug lords, who specialise in kidnapping and ransoming people for their kicks. She’s rich, she’s famous, she goes home. With one bodyguard. I don’t find any of that believable, unless Ana is really, really stupid. But I fear she might be. As well as a walking cliché. But then, you haven’t met her mother yet, the woman who is taken right out of Mexicans for Dummies. I do feel uncomfortable with some parts of her character, which seems more Mexican cliché than real person.
Ana has reason to dislike Chance. The first time she meets him, he’s sitting in her dressing room, having got past the guard and picked her lock. Yet while she’s terrified, she still has time to check him out. Absolutely what I think when I’m being chased by a crazed stalker and I find a man I’ve never met in my room. Then, when that’s sorted out and she knows he’s her bodyguard, she gives him the slip. So she can go home to her family who live in a dangerous part of Mexico where drug lords abound. But she’ll be all right, surely. Especially if she keeps a low profile, which she doesn’t. Everybody knows she’s home.
At the airport, when Chance lands them in his own plane that he built himself from a wreck, when he goes to sort out the paperwork, she disappears. He goes nuts, but he finds her at his home. She just decides to take off on her own. Are you seeing a pattern here? Less feisty and outspoken, more dumb as a rock. By then she and Chance are lovers. They make out in a very romantic place, which happens to be a sacred Mayan place. I do think it might not be the done thing, but what do I know about sacred Mayan places, except that sacred places are usually, well, sacred.
Chance walks into Ana’s room at the beginning of the story, is badass enough to handle everything and everyone, builds his own plane, but he doesn’t seem to be able to handle one small woman. Or maybe his cock is talking through most of the story. The sex scenes are mildly interesting, but not as hot as you might be led to believe, considering it’s a Blaze. Actually, not many Blazes I’ve read are hot, so I no longer read them for that.
Stylistically, there are problems, and most of them are the kind that an editor should have picked up. I noted a few:
“Changing into a soft nightgown and a matching robe, she poured a glass of wine”
So she’s getting changed and pouring a glass of wine at the same time? There were a few of those doing two things at once sentences.“flat, taught belly”
Should be “taut.” Unless the belly was taking lessons in how to be flat.“She watched him walk to the bathroom, returning a few seconds later to lay back down beside her.”
Should be “lie.”
There’s a secondary love story which seems to be more filler than anything else, but the characters involved seem a lot more interested than the main two.
I really can’t recommend this one. I wish I could.
Grade: D
Summary:
Berringer Bodyguards File #3
Name: Chance Berringer
Trademarks: Chance by name…chance by nature!
Biggest weakness: Adventure and beautiful women—especially when combined in one caliente cook!Danger is bodyguard Chance Berringer’s first, last and middle name. Protecting celebrity chef Ana Perez—a hot little firecracker with a mouth to match—for two weeks in Mexico is more vacation than job. Just keep his eyes on her, and his hands off. How hard can it be?
Plenty hard.
Ana doesn’t want a babysitter during the holidays. Even if Chance’s muscled hotness (complete with wicked grin) makes him a mouthwatering dish…. But when the heat starts sizzling in the bedroom—and beyond—will this hot tamale cause more trouble than Chance can handle?
Read an excerpt.
