The Hartwood Publishing Group, $3.99, ISBN 978-1-62916-319-2
Romantic Suspense, 2015
Since the time I purchased Becca Jameson’s Force, it has since been reissued with a new cover and all, but since they always say that one should write what one knows best, I’m going to stick to this edition. Hence, details like the price, the publisher, et cetera in this review reflect the edition that I plonked money down for. Therefore, there’s no need to send me emails complaining that these details are off.
With that out of the way, let’s get on with this thing. It’s the first entry in a series called The Underground, which is also related to a prior series by the author, and it’s about—get ready—hot dangerous Russians.
I know, know. All those snowflakes that live and breathe the so-called progressive echo chambers on social media are probably screeching for the author’s cancellation right now, and the fact that this came out in 2015 may not matter since retroactive cancellation is still hot and sexy where their heads are. If you are one of those people, I’d really appreciate that you don’t tell me what a cray cray you are, so that we can still be friends without all the awkwardness that comes with your revelation.
Now, when it comes to romance stories with alpha males, it inevitably boils down to the heroine needing their protection, and this one is no different.
Lauren Schneider is hiding from the crew of the Las Vegas-based mob boss Anton Yenin, who still remains obsessed over her even when he’s locked up behind bars.
Now, this is where the whole “linked to a previous series” thing comes in. I understand that Anton once kidnapped Lauren, and our hero Dmitry Volikov helped her escape, mostly because he too pants after her. No one can resist the hotness of American women, you see.
Anyway, with Anton now incarcerated, the former fighter of the crime boss’s underground fight club now works as a construction worker by day and an MMA fighter on Friday nights.
This story begins when Lauren decides to get a job at a bar, because that’s the perfect place to work at when you’re worried that someone is going to sneak in among the crowd and drag you back to a horny-addled, violent mob boss.
Dmitry is appalled by her decision, and she can’t figure out why.
It was absurd. Who got this worked up over the incredibly shitty job offer she’d just accepted in a seedy bar on a seedier street in Chicago?
The fact that the author can write out that sentence without a hint of self-awareness isn’t a good sign, surely?
She no longer gave a shit if her life was in danger. She didn’t even believe it could possibly be true anymore. Six months was a long time to hide from a man who was in jail. Surely no one was still looking for her. It would be a complete waste of resources.
Oh yes, I can see the warning signs already.
Sure enough, Lauren turns out to be a heroine that is incapable of making any good decision even if her life depended on it, and in this context, it often does. Sure, it’s tough having to stay in her apartment for six months… can you imagine how she will fare if she had to do that for, oh, three years? Boy, it’s a good thing such a situation will never arise!
Fortunately, for all her protests about how she is now taking control of her fears and her life and no man is going to tell her that there is a big difference between taking control and being outright stupid, we have once again a big strong man to save the heroine from herself.
He practically throws her down onto the bed and proves that, once again, these woman may claim to be modern liberated chicks but all you need is a hot body, big dong, and swagger to make them shut up and take it. Not that I am certain that this is an entirely wrong way of spending more time under lockdown. Just imagine how less stressful that would have been if one had a harem of hot guys to keep the boredom at bay!
D, last night was awesome. Don’t read anything into this. I need to work. I’m going stir crazy in this apartment. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d try to talk me out of it. Your days of being so overprotective have to come to an end. I’m not a prisoner. I can’t live this way any longer. I’ll be home late tonight after my shift.
L
P.S. I took two hundred dollars from your wallet. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can. Why on earth are you carrying so much cash anyway?
Great, on top of being a wench with no sense of self-preservation, she is also a thief.
You know, one thing smart that the author has done here is to not have Anton show up to muahaha Lauren. On the other hand, there is still a threat toward the end, so the author manages to still negate that one smart thing, sigh.
Now, this is a very readable story. The narrative is tight, the conversations flow naturally without anyone coming off as trying too hard to be sarcastic or clever, and the overall story is very easy to read. In fact, I’ve had a pretty easy time digesting this thing in a single setting.
Unfortunately, this story is entirely wasted on a heroine determined to go about doing her own thing in a cringe-blasted, insensible or reckless manner and way too much time is spent on mundane nonsense like Dmitry having to tag along as Lauren goes shopping for things with his money. Our heroine has this tendency to act first, think later, and she doesn’t seem to think that it may not be okay to take it for granted that she can just do whatever with the hero and his possessions without checking with him first.
Naturally, the romantic tension hinges on the heroine waffling and coming up with all kinds of reasons to avoid committing into a relationship with Dmitry. While normally I may empathize with her desire to catch up on living after missing out six months of her life, the author’s treatment of Lauren’s emotional state of mind is so superficial and borderline cartoon that I see the heroine’s dawdling as just a lazy excuse to make the story longer than it should have any right to be.
It also doesn’t help that the romance boils down to “They had been hot for one another since they first met in a previous story, so now they are just having sex, hurrah!”
In the end, I am reluctantly giving this one three oogies because, at the end of the day, it’s actually a very well-written and readable story. It’s a huge damn shame, therefore, that the whole thing is just so mundane and lacking excitement, suspense, or passion.
