REVIEW: Hard As It Gets (Hard Ink #1)

Hard As It Gets (Hard Ink #1), by Laura Kaye
Publish Date: November 26, 2013
Publisher: Avon
Format: paperback, purchased
Genre: adult contemporary romance/suspense/military drama
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
 
Rating: 4 STARS

(From Goodreads) 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...

So, when I found out I was going to meet Laura Kaye at Apollycon last month, it became the perfect excuse for me to finally dig into her Hard Ink series. The first book, Hard As It Gets, had been on my TBR for quite awhile, so the prospect of meeting Laura and having her sign something for me convinced me that this was the perfect time to get into this series. I'm so glad I did, and now I can't wait to read all of them. 

Becca doesn't know why her brother sent her to seek help from Nicolas Rixey when she got into trouble. But, with the rest of her family gone, she was left with no options. Nick initially wants nothing to do with the daughter of his traitorous former commander. But, the protector in him just can't leave her alone. Good thing too, because when others get wind that Becca's brother was looking into the circumstances surrounding Nick's military team's questionable discharge, all of a sudden, she's put in big danger. 

I loved this book because it's obviously just the start of a larger, broad-scale story that will span many books. Never fear though - Nick's and Becca's story has a beginning and an end all in this book. So, it's like the best of both worlds. We get a very satisfying HEA for Nick and Becca, and an introduction to a much larger story, rife with conspiracy theories, attempted murder and lots of hot military men running around trying to save the world. What could be better than that? 

Nick is very resistant to Becca in the beginning. We find out relatively quickly that a few years earlier, his commanding officer had made some shady deals that resulted in Nick's team getting ambushed and half of them dead. Nick hasn't been the same since, as he bears the brunt of the guilt associated with the event. He didn't know how to deal with his squad mates that were still alive, so he just... doesn't. I'm a fan of avoidance too, so I get that. 

Becca is admirable in her determination to find her brother. Even when Nick turns her away, Becca is resolute in her efforts to bring him home. While she would love Nick's help, she's not the type of woman to beg for it. I loved that about her. She's strong and capable and willing to do whatever was needed to get to the truth. 

And, the truth is out there somewhere, it just isn't someplace we can get to in one book. Luckily, we get a lot of backstory, and a lot of hot and steamy romance as Nick and Becca start to work closely together to get to the bottom of things. 

Although Nick and Becca come to a good place, there's still a lot of questions left unanswered in regards to the hows and whys of the rest of Nick's team. Luckily, there's still a few hot guys left on the team to help unravel the tale (and give us super steamy covers to look at). I can't wait to see what happens next.

REVIEW: Winter's Heat (Titan #1)

Winter's Heat (Titan #1), by Cristin Harber
Published September 25, 2013 (audio released June 6, 2014)
Publisher: Mill Creek Press
Format: audiobook, provided by Inkslinger PR for review
Genre: adult suspense/military romance
To Buy: Amazon * Barnes & Noble
 
Rating: 3 STARS

(From Goodreads) A WOMAN ON A MISSION
After putting her life on the line to protect classified intelligence, military psychologist Mia Kensington is on a cross-country road trip from hell with an intrusive save-the-day hero. Uninterested in his white knight act, she’d rather take her chances without the ruggedly handsome, cold-blooded operative who boasts an alpha complex and too many guns.

AND THE MAN SENT TO STOP HER
Colby Winters, an elite member of The Titan Group, has a single objective on his black ops mission: recover a document important to national security. It was supposed to be an easy in-and-out operation. But now, by any means necessary becomes a survival mantra when he faces off with a stunning woman he can’t leave behind.

MUST PARTNER TO SURVIVE
When Titan’s safe houses are compromised, Colby stashes Mia at his home, exposing his secret—he’s the adoptive father of an orphaned baby girl. Too soon, danger arrives and Mia lands in the hands of a sadistic cartel king with a taste for torture. As hours bleed into fear-drenched days, Colby races across the globe and through a firestorm of bullets to save the woman he can’t live without.

Reviews like this are hard for me to write. I listened to Winter's Heat on a business trip out to Pittsburgh last month. It was an audiobook, and I do find sometimes that it's hard for me to separate my feeling about the book from my feeling about the narration. If you're an audiobook fan, do you have the same problem? If the narrator doesn't do it for me, it sort of taints the whole thing a bit. 

In Winter's Heat, we meet Colby Winters who is a member of The Titan Group, a bunch of beefy military-esque secret operatives who go out on dangerous and near-impossible missions. Colby's mission is an easy one - take possession of an envelope before the bad guys get it. Except Mia Kensington gets it first. So, Colby takes both Mia and the envelope, and now he has to protect them both. As they are holed up in his house, they connect on many levels, and when Mia is taken, Colby enlists the help of his whole team to get her back. 

The narration of Winter's Heat was performed by Jeffery Kafer. I don't listen to many books read by male narrators. It's not done on purpose - it just seems like, since most of the books I read have a female MC, the narrators of the audiobooks are usually female. Mr. Kafer's voice is deep. I'm talking Barry White deep. It's extremely manly and sexy and perfect for how I picture Colby. 

The problem is, when you have a very deep voice, it's got to be difficult to inflect enough to tell the different characters apart. All the guys in the Titan group sounded exactly the same, so when they were all in a room together talking, it was confusing and hard for me to tell who was speaking. And, a guy with such a deep voice trying to sound like a female... honestly, it made me giggle more than once. Not the desired effect, I'm sure. Especially during the super sexy parts. 

Overall, I found the narration rather flat. 

As far as the actual plot went, the first 75% of the book was great. It was exciting, and I enjoyed learning more about what was in that envelope and how Mia came to have it in her possession. I liked Colby's alpha protectiveness toward Mia. Although I think the love and sex between them came on really fast - it was very instalovey - the sexual tension between them was really good. 

The last 25% of the book was just a little far-fetched for me. Admittedly, military type romances like this are not books that I read a lot. Perhaps they are all like this? But, the parts that took place in Colombia just had me scratching my head a bit. It felt like, it was pathetically easy for Mia to be taken from this supposedly impenetrable home, then equally as easy for her to be rescued. 

My dislike of the audio version seems to be affecting my ability to objectively review the book. I'm wondering if I would have a different opinion if I read the PB version instead. Perhaps for book #2...