Alice's Review: Fast Track

Author: Julie Garwood
Series: Buchanan-Renard #12
Publication Date: July 29, 2014
Publisher: Dutton Books
Pages: 352
Obtained: Publisher via NetGalley
Genre:  Contemporary Romance, Mystery
Rating: 3
Bottom Line: Good read but forgettable.
Grab, Just get it at the library, or Remove from your TBR list? Library

Summary: Cordelia Kane has always been a daddy's girl—her father raised her alone after her mother died in a car crash when Cordelia was just two years old. So when he has a serious heart attack, Cordelia is devastated, and the emotion is only intensified by the confusion she feels when he reveals the shocking truth about her mother.  Cordelia cant suppress her curiosity about the woman who gave birth to her, and when she discovers the answers to her questions lie in Sydney, Australia, she travels there to get them.  Hotel magnate Aiden Madison is Cordelias best friends older brother. Hes oblivious to the fact that shes had a crush on him for years. When he gets railroaded into taking her along to Sydney on his company jet, hes unwittingly drawn into a volatile family drama. Aiden wants to help Cordelia get answers about her mother, but threats from her wealthy, high-powered family are quickly becoming dangerous. Sparks are flying between Cordelia and Aiden, but after multiple attempts are made on Cordelias life, Aiden realizes he must put a stop to the madness before he loses the thing he values most. ~ powells.com

Review:   Julie Garwood is back with another visit to my favorite Buchanan clan with Fast Track. This time she’s giving Cordie and Aiden their long awaited go at romance. First of all, the beginning of this novel drove me mad crazy. As a reader and (almost stalker like) follower of the Buchanan series, I knew that eventually Cordie and Aiden were going to get together. This does not need a spoiler alert. What I disliked so profusely is how utterly forced their initial joining was. It didn’t make sense to me at all. There was nothing organic about it. I really hate that. Love should be what the characters want, not what the author forces them to have. My other complaint is the name of this novel. It makes no sense. There wasn’t anything particularly fast about how it happened. Fast Track would be a title better suited for the Aiden’s youngest brother Walker, who is a race car driver.

Besides those two fails, I enjoyed the novel. One of the things I truly relish about Julie Garwood is she gives us Knights in Shining Armor and Damsels in Distress. Although let’s be honest, these women really don’t need help anyway. She shows how the rich and elite live and how it’s perfectly reasonable for a women to fall in love with the man who rescues her even if they have nothing in common but the horizontal tango. She provides her readers with a means to escape the boringness of life. This novel is no different.

As you all know, one of my biggest gripes with Ms. Garwood’s female characters is how annoyingly perfect they are. I appreciated that Cordie wasn’t as perfect as the women before her. She was unorganized, yet brilliant. Qualities that were actually charming and endearing. While I liked Crodie, I didn’t feel the same way about Aiden. He was mostly a macho jerk. Of all of Ms. Garwood’s heros, he was my least favorite. I was about a third of the way through Fast Track before Aiden even acknowledged Cordie in a manner that was not of the “my little sister’s best friend” way. That’s a long while in romance novel time.

On a positive note, we got a good dose of Alec Buchanan from Murder List and Jack MacAlister from Fire and Ice in Fast Track. These two strong male characters more than made up for Aiden. I enjoyed the novel, but I can’t shake the feeling that Cordie would have been just fine without Aiden. It’s a good thing she had that crush on him since she was five because I can’t imagine any other women putting up with his pigheadedness ways. Okay, I’ll lay off Aiden already.

All in all, I liked this one. It’s well written, a lot steamier than I expected, and a quick and fun summer read. It started off a bit rough for me but Fast Track gained momentum towards the end. I think the Julie Garwood diehards out there will really enjoy this one. As for the rest of you, well, you might want to skip it altogether.

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Alice's Review: Hotshot

Summary:  Peyton Lockhart and her sisters have inherited Bishops Cove, a small, luxurious oceanfront resort, but it comes with a condition: The girls must run the resort for one year and show a profit—only then will they own it.  A graduate of a prestigious French culinary school, Peyton has just lost her job as a food critic. Out of work and in a bad place personally, a year doing something completely different sounds wonderful.  There are countless challenges and too many people who want to stop the sisters from succeeding. Among them are Peytons contentious cousins, who are outraged that they didnt inherit the resort, as well as a powerful group of land developers who have been eyeing the coveted beachfront property.  Its soon apparent to Peyton that their efforts are being sabotaged, but she refuses to let the threats scare her—until shes nearly killed. She calls on her childhood friend and protector, Finn MacBain, now with the FBI, and asks for his help. He saved her life once; he can do it again? ~ powells.com

Review:  I love Julie Garwood.  I think that it’s pretty clear because year after year I read her newest novel knowing full well what will happen.  Sometimes I get a warm fuzzy feeling watching love blossom before my eyes.  Sometimes those very same eyes seem permanently rolled to the top of my head as I have a hard time believing or accepting this perfect love.  Hotshot was all about the warm fuzzy feeling.

I really enjoyed the romance between Peyton and her childhood hero Finn, who of course is a gold medal winning FBI agent.  (Three times, no less.  Come on.  Seriously?)  Much to her chagrin, she inadvertently puts her life in danger.  Thankfully, she has old neighbor Finn to save the day. (A Julie Garwood hero named MacBain? Wonder if there is a connect to Gabriel MacBain from one of my all time favorites Saving Grace?)

What was interesting to me is although the story seemed far from plausible, the passion and the attraction Finn and Peyton felt for each other wasn’t.  It wouldn’t be a contemporary romance without the song and dance that goes along with the attraction.  There needs to be some “will they or won’t they” in order to make the story work.  The truth is the formula that makes a romance work is the very thing that drives me crazy about them.  I know the couple will end up together, but sometimes I wish they just wouldn’t.  How about some genuine heartache for a change instead of mild misunderstanding?   End of rant.

As with her other novels, both characters are seemingly perfect.   Surprisingly I didn’t find it nearly as annoying as I did with SweetTalk (read my review here).  I really enjoyed them.  Their passion came through on the pages, Hotshot was a lot steamier than I am used to reading.  And the spark I was worried Ms. Garwood had lost?  It’s back.  I’m looking forward to the next installment in this somewhat unconnected series.  I have a feeling we’re about the get to know Finn’s FBI partner Ronan very well.

Final Take: 4/5

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Alice's Review: Sweet Talk

Summary:   When FBI agent Grayson Kincaid first encounters Olivia MacKenzie, she makes quite an impression.  The beautiful, tough, young attorney has stumbled into the middle of an FBI sting operation and has reduced it to chaos. Months of surveillance and careful planning down the drain, Kincaid’s partner is furious and lets Olivia know that she’s ticked off the wrong guy. After all, he’s FBI.  Olivia isn’t intimidated by his partner’s bullying because she’s something even scarier . . . she’s IRS. And working for the IRS isn’t for the faint of heart. She’s on the trail of an elaborate Ponzi scheme, one that threatens to ruin the lives of naive and unsuspecting victims, and one she has personal reasons to be angry about. But after she asks questions of the wrong people, her life is suddenly endangered. She’s accustomed to fighting for the underdog but being vulnerable herself is a very different story. Smart enough to know when to call for reinforcements, she contacts Grayson Kincaid. Together they make an excellent team to fight corruption but Olivia is also fighting the immediate and intense attraction she feels for Agent Kincaid, and that may be a battle she is bound to lose.

Review:  I have been a fan of Julie Garwood since my late teens when I was completely addicted to historical romance novels.  One thing Ms. Garwood does extremely well is historical romance.  Pick up any one of her novels and you will see what I am talking about.  I especially love For the Roses and Saving Grace.  In 2000, she decided to cut her teeth at contemporary romance.  She introduced us to the Buchanan family with Heartbreaker and hasn’t looked back since.

Her newest installment in this FBI heavy series is Sweet Talk about a gusty IRS attorney Olivia MacKenzie and Grayson Kincaid, one of the FBI’s finest.  They meet under the usual way:  smart beautiful sexy woman gets in trouble and smart, fearless, sexy man saves her.  And of course he can’t take his eyes off her because she’s perfect and she can’t take her eyes off him because she never seen a male specimen that fine.  And so begins their whirlwind romance.

If you are looking for a break from the mold, sadly you won’t get it.  I don’t necessarily blame Ms. Garwood.  I think it could be more a genre issue than a writer’s issue.  Then again, my opinion is biased, as you will find out below.  She is far from “calling it in,” but this is lackluster compared to her earlier works.  I believe the major flaw in Ms. Garwood work is that she creates characters that are too perfect.  Even their minuscule flaws are endearing.  I found Olivia to be reckless and Grayson too domineering.  Overall the story moves quickly, it is action packed.  But is it missing something, something critical to make this a success.

The thing is I am willing to overlook these flaws because of one thing, and one thing only…I love Julie Garwood.  I love her writing style.  I love how she sucks me in.  In spite of knowing how it will end, I keep on reading.  In spite of how annoyingly perfect  the characters can be, I keep reading.  Part of me feels she can do no wrong.  What contradicts those thoughts is I have read her early contemporary romance novels and I can read the difference.  I know how fantastic Heartbreaker and my absolute favorite Mercy are.  I makes me a little sad that she can’t quite muster that magic again.  I just hope it is not lost forever.

Final Take: 3/5