Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I admit it, the title sucked me in. I was ready to enjoy a new series on which NR put her stamp of approval. Why I liked it: This new author certainly writes with passion and enthusiasm, and the story includes many interlocking characters, all moving toward conflicting goals that bring them into a dance of pain, revenge, hurt and betrayal. She can write, and I think she'll become very good. Why I didn't like it and couldn't finish: The author over-uses physical reactions. The characters spend the story with guts churning, breath shutting down so that they are in danger of passing out, jaws clenching ... yes, the hero's jaw clenches many, many times. The heroine spends most of the story either in the midst of a panic attack, (which sounds very unpleasant and I could have done with one portrayal), or her legs are shaking so badly she sounds as if she's having a spastic attack. Unattractive, I would think. Her repeat motion, pretty much on par with the hero's clenching jaw, is to touch her ribs, on which she is wearing a series of corsets. Also, the hero, who is a tough, seasoned war journalist, apparently can't dig up anything on the villain, a senatorial candidate who sleeps around with everything that moves. Instead, the hero must quell his morals and seduce the candidate's wife, thus breaking her heart. And his sister the cop knows about this. Apparently it bothers neither of them. I began to despise the hero and his sis at this time. Ick. Finally, the candidate phones the hero repeatedly to up the ante and torture him with sleazy promises of further mayhem to hero's baby brother, who has a checkered past and an innocent family. During these long chats, the hero must clench his jaw and say nothing to anger this villain. I'm thinking if baby bro was married when he committed the acts with which villain is blackmailing his family, his wife would have to be pretty stoo-pid not to know he did them. So he should man up and tell her himself. With big bro and big sis standing behind him and his family for support. As far as secondary characters, the heroine has a younger sister who pokes her nose into everyone's business, does lots of wild dancing in public and has an on/off, love/hate thing with an old boyfriend. I sort of hoped that someone would slip her a tranquilizer, and that the old boyfriend would realize she has the mental age of a ten-year old and move the heck on.