Stevie‘s review of Hard As It Gets (Hard Ink, Book 1) by Laura Kaye
Contemporary Military Romance published by Avon 26 Nov 13
The blurb on this one’s a little misleading, since the hero is one of the survivors of a botched mission which led to his and his comrades’ disgrace and dismissal, while their commander – the heroine’s father – was posthumously declared a hero in spite of the survivors’ belief that he deliberately led them into a trap. So the decision to help the heroine is made out of loyalty to the team and a desire to potentially clear their names, rather than any redirected loyalty to the commander’s family. Having said that, the hero is attracted to the heroine from the start – against his better judgement – and I do rather like plot arcs in which characters attempt to redress wrongs done against themselves and others in order to achieve redemption in the eyes of authority. But…
I want my heroes to act like heroes. When we’re repeatedly told that these are the good guys, with no hint of cynicism or irony, then I want them to keep within certain moral boundaries. Villains torture their victims; antiheroes may resort to violence under stress in order to obtain information; heroes, in my opinion, don’t torture a captured bad guy and threaten to use the same techniques that his boss used on the missing person they’re looking for. The book was sort of losing me before that point, but I kept reading in hope that there would be a turnaround before the end that addressed the issues that bother me.
Becca Merritt is concerned when her younger brother Charlie, a conspiracy theorist, has dropped out of sight, and the authorities won’t help her. His last communication with her implied that one of their father’s former army comrades, Nick Rixey, is the guy to go to for help. When she finds him, however, in the tattoo parlour he co-owns with his younger brother, he’s not just unwilling to help, he’s downright hostile. So Becca decides to keep investigating by herself, figuring that having lost both parents and her older brother, her one surviving close relative isn’t going to get himself killed if she can prevent it.
Rixey’s intrigued by Becca, but he doesn’t trust her, so he follows her, rescuing her from a couple of sticky situations in the process, and slowly comes to the conclusion that her brother’s disappearance is connected to the incident that led to half his team being killed and the other half injured and then dismissed. He persuades Becca to move into the vast converted warehouse he and his brother live and work in, and calls in a bunch of favours to get the other survivors to come and help with the search, but he doesn’t tell her his suspicions regarding her father’s betrayal of the team. That kind of behaviour annoys me, although I do quite like the other team members once I more or less managed to differentiate between them.
The team work pretty well together, although they seem a little gung-ho at times, rushing in to several locations, when they could have investigated a little longer and concentrated their efforts on the most likely place, and then there’s that torture incident. There are some cute scenes relating to an apparently stray dog that Becca rescued, although I do have concerns that they aren’t ever going to check there isn’t a distraught owner out there somewhere looking for it.
In the end, the main plot mystery is cleared up and clues are unearthed that move the series’ plot arc forward. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that the redemption plot is going to take too many books to clear up, especially given the number of characters involved already, most of whom are going to need their own stories. So I won’t be following this one for the reasons mentioned and also a couple of other pet peeves, one of which includes another repeat of the assumptions that condoms aren’t important once the characters are in love – no matter how quickly that’s happened – and if the heroine is on the pill.
Grade: D
Summary:
Tall, dark, and lethal…
Trouble just walked into Nicholas Rixey’s tattoo parlor. Becca Merritt is warm, sexy, wholesome–pure temptation to a very jaded Nick. He’s left his military life behind to become co-owner of Hard Ink Tattoo, but Becca is his ex-commander’s daughter. Loyalty won’t let him turn her away. Lust has plenty to do with it too.
With her brother presumed kidnapped, Becca needs Nick. She just wasn’t expecting to want him so much. As their investigation turns into all-out war with an organized crime ring, only Nick can protect her. And only Becca can heal the scars no one else sees.
Desire is the easy part. Love is as hard as it gets. Good thing Nick is always up for a challenge…
Read an excerpt.
Other books in this series:
