2015 Book #88 – Friction by Sandra Brown

Posted in 2015, ARC August, Book reviews, Reading Challenges, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

Title: Friction
Author: Sandra Brown
Date finished: 8/18/15
Genre: Romantic suspense
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Publication Date: August 18, 2015
Pages in book: 416
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Crawford Hunt wants his daughter back. Following the death of his wife four years ago, Crawford, a Texas Ranger, fell into a downward spiral that left him relegated to deskwork and with his five-year-old daughter Georgia in the custody of her grandparents. But Crawford has cleaned up his act, met all the court imposed requirements, and now the fate of his family lies with Judge Holly Spencer.
Holly, ambitious and confident, temporarily occupies the bench of her recently deceased mentor. With an election upcoming, she must prove herself worthy of making her judgeship permanent. Every decision is high-stakes. Despite Crawford’s obvious love for his child and his commitment to being an ideal parent, Holly is wary of his checkered past. Her opinion of him is radically changed when a masked gunman barges into the courtroom during the custody hearing. Crawford reacts instinctually, saving Holly from a bullet.
But his heroism soon takes on the taint of recklessness. The cloud over him grows even darker after he uncovers a horrifying truth about the courtroom gunman and realizes that the unknown person behind the shooting remains at large . . .and a threat.
Catching the real culprit becomes a personal fight for Crawford. But pursuing the killer in his customary diehard fashion will jeopardize his chances of gaining custody of his daughter, and further compromise Judge Holly Spencer, who needs protection not only from an assassin, but from Crawford himself and the forbidden attraction between them.
FRICTION will keep you on the edge of your seat with breathtaking plot twists and the unforgettable characters that make Sandra Brown one of the world’s best-loved authors. It is an extraordinary novel about the powerful ties that bind us to the ones we love and the secrets we keep to protect them.

My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: This book will be counting towards my goal for ARC August reading challenge, it is #9 on list from my sign up post. I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. I am a HUGE fan of Sandra Brown’s books, one of my first posts ever on my blog I talked about her book Deadline that I had read in 2013. There was a huge plot twist in the end that I never saw coming and it just floored me. I think that was my main issue, because Deadline really took my so much by surprise I was sitting through most of this book waiting for the other shoe to drop and for there to be that WTF moment and it happened but it wasn’t the shocker that I thought it would be. So I finished the book almost like still waiting for something more to happen instead of just enjoying what I was reading. So I guess my advice with this book is just to enjoy it and not look too much into the story because it is a good story but if you think too hard you’re going to make it harder for yourself to enjoy it.
Anyways so this book was about Judge Holly Spencer and Crawford Hunt, a Texas Ranger who is petitioning for custody of his daughter (Georgia) from the girl’s grandparents. I guess when Georgia was still a baby, her mom died and then Crawford came like unhinged and the grandparents had to take care of the baby for awhile and now they don’t want to give her back. Which honestly is one of the few things I ended up not liking about this book. Crawford’s father-in-law Joe was like a complete jerk to him and thought he should’ve gotten more of what was coming to him than he did. Crawford so obviously loved that little girl I don’t understand why Grace and Joe were trying to keep her from her own father, it still makes me mad just thinking about it. Moving on, Holly was the judge deciding whether Georgia would be returned to her father or not. But before Holly made her decision, a freaky scary guy came into the courtroom and started shooting up the place. Crawford helps to save Holly’s life and then from there we have to try and figure out who the shooter was.
Overall I really liked this book, it had a great story line and it was a quick read for me even though it was a fairly long book. I really just love how Brown draws you into the story and you just have to know what’s going to happen so you keep reading (even if its way past your bedtime). Her books are continually ones that I end up with book hangovers because I just can’t ever seem to get to a point where I can put it down and go to sleep. This book was another good one of hers, though I have to be honest Deadline is still my favorite I’ve read of hers so far. The tension between Holly and Crawford literally crackles and you can feel the magnetic pull between the two. No matter how hard they try to fight it, they are drawn to each other time and again. This book will keep you on your toes through the end!

The bottom line: I really enjoyed this book, I was hooked into the story from the beginning. It was a good suspense, I wouldn’t say it is my favorite written by this author but it is a good book! I would recommend it.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

3Jun2015

Waiting on Wednesday (9): Friction by Sandra Brown

Posted in "Waiting On" Wednesday, Book memes, For the love of books by rebeccabook17

“Waiting On” Wednesday” is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights eagerly anticipated upcoming releases.

This week’s spotlight is on:

Friction by Sandra Brown (unfortunately no cover has been released yet)

Release Date: August 18, 2015

Blurb from the cover (Amazon):

Why Am I Waiting?

I am a huge fan of Sandra Brown’s suspense thrillers. They are riveting, exciting, often unpredictable, and just fantastic. I just found out how much I love her books within the past year or so, and I am really exciting for her upcoming release since I’m sure its going to be great.

10Nov2014

2014 – Book #100

Posted in Book reviews, Paranormal romance, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The hundredth book I read in 2014 was Long Time Coming by Edie Claire. This book was recommended to me by my cousin, Stephanie Gorman. I finished this book on 11/9/14. This was the first book I’ve read by this author. I rated this book 3.5 stars out of a scale of 5. This book tells the story of Joy Hudson, who after 18 years away returns home to Wharton, Kentucky to care for her father and mother, both of which are not in the best of health anymore. Joy left home a long time ago and never looked back, too scarred by traumatic events that occurred at the end of her senior year to think of Wharton as home.

When Joy returns to Wharton though she is forced to face a variety of issues that she had up until then successfully avoided. Like why she feels so guilty about her best friend’s death in high school. And why she’s scared of Jeff Bradford (her best friend’s high school boyfriend) and how he makes her feel, even now eighteen years later.

Overall I did enjoy this book. I was interested in the story line and liked the mixture of paranormal and suspense in the plot. I thought that the characters could’ve been developed a tad bit more and had more depth. As much as we delved into Joy’s psyche I found her character to be a bit flat I guess. Other than that I liked the story well enough. Though I wouldn’t consider it one of my favorites, it was interesting and also free on Amazon Kindle!

Link to author website: http://www.edieclaire.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Long-Time-Coming-Edie-Claire-ebook/dp/B004RJ7Y8Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415646021&sr=8-1&keywords=long+time+coming

3Aug2014

2014 – Book #65

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Guinevere Jones series, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The sixty-fifth book I read in 2014 was The Desperate Game by Jayne Castle. This is the first book in the Guinevere Jones series by this author. I finished this book on 8/2/14. I rated this book 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book introduces us to Guinevere Jones, the owner of a small-business temp agency. While covering one of her assignments, she encounters a man named Zac Justis, who she discovers has been looking for her.

Zac has been hired to get to the bottom of some equipment shipment thefts that were discovered due to a new inventory computer program. Starr Enterprises is Zac’s first big client of his brand new investigation/consulting firm and he wants to make sure this customer walks away happy. He decides to use Gwen to infiltrate the computer programming division of Starr Enterprises and find out who is behind the thefts.

Gwen’s not thrilled about being blackmailed into helping Zac, but what forms as a result is an unlikely alliance. But after Zac begins to doubt whether Gwen is actually involved in the thefts. Gwen is hurt by Zac’s accusations and sets out to prove him wrong.

This was a really a very good story. It was well-paced and the plot was interesting. I very much liked the heroine, but i did find the hero to be a little heavy-handed. Since this story was originally published in 1986, the alpha-male character is a little different than those of today. For instance, at one point in the story the hero knocks the heroine over the back of the head (thinking she is someone else) and the heroine never brings this up later on and the hero never even apologizes. I found this to be an issue. Other than that though I did enjoy the book!

Link to author website: http://jayneannkrentz.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Desperate-Game-Guinevere-Jones-Book-ebook/dp/B007P7HZFE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407032368&sr=8-1&keywords=the+desperate+game

7May2014

2014 – Book #36

Posted in Book reviews, Historical Romance, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The thirty-sixth book I read in 2014 was Otherwise Engaged by Amanda Quick (which is a pen name of Jayne Ann Krentz). I finished this book on 5/6/14. I rated this book 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This book is about Amity Doncaster and Benedict Stanbridge. They met on a ship bound for New York when Amity found Benedict shot and bleeding badly in an alleyway. She manages to get him back to the cruise ship, and thankfully she has some medical training from her doctor so she is able to stitch up Benedict and care for him through his fever and subsequent recovery. After passing through New York though, Amity is heading back home to London and Benedict is heading to California before then heading home to London later on. Benedict promises to call on her when he returns to London.

Some time later, Benedict finally shows up in London and pays a call to Amity. Unbeknownst to him though Amity was recently attacked by the killer they call the Bridegroom due to her friendship with Benedict. The story that follows is really Amity and Benedict, along with Amity’s sister Penny, assist Scotland Yard’s Inspector John Logan in hunting down this killer. One of the interesting things about this book is the heroine’s weapon of choice, something called a tessen, its a Japanese iron war fan. The heroine uses this as a weapon against the Bridegroom in order to escape his clutches. If you’d like to read more about tessens, here is an article about them on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_fan.

Overall I thought this was a very good story. It was interesting to go along on the journey to search for the killer. Some of the conversations felt a bit awkward though. But the plot was fairly well-paced and I liked the characters. This wasn’t my favorite book by this author but it was enjoyable.

Link to author website: http://www.krentz-quick.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Otherwise-Engaged-Ladies-Lantern-Street-ebook/dp/B00FX7R5QM/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399486343&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=otherwis+engaged

28Mar2014

2014 – Book #20

Posted in Book reviews, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The twentieth book I finished in 2014 was Below the Surface by Karen Harper. I finished this book on 3/28/14 (again on a technicality at 12:20am). This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I rated this book 3.75 stars out of a scale of 5.

Brianna Devon resurfaces from her dive off the coast of Florida to discover her twin sister, Daria, and their boat have disappeared. With the threat of sharks and an oncoming storm, she is stranded 4 miles out in the ocean with little hope of being saved. Luckily for her Cole De Roca is also shored by the oncoming storm on a nearby island. When Brianna washes ashore unconscious, he knows he must get her help immediately.

After Brianna awakens and begins searching for her missing sister, she uncovers a wealth of things she never knew about the twin she thought she knew like the back of her hand. And after Daria’s body is discovered in their sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean, Brianna refuses to believe that Daria simply fell victim to the storm. With a wealth of motives from various people in their lives, Brianna believes that Daria may have been murdered. But as Brianna begins to dig deeper into Daria’s secret life to try and discover her killer, she becomes the new target. Cole must now protect Brianna at all costs as he discovers life wouldn’t be complete without her.

I very much liked the plot of this book, it was a good suspense story with a wealth of possible suspects. The conversations tended to be a bit choppy at times and there were a few loose ends that weren’t ever tied up (who was the second guy that Daria was meeting at that bar?) but overall this was a good story and I had a lot of trouble putting it down. I plan to read more by this author in the future.

Link to author website: http://www.karenharperauthor.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Below-Surface-Karen-Harper/dp/0778324966/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363631021&sr=1-1&keywords=Karen+Harper+Below+the

18Mar2014

2014 – Book #17

Posted in Book reviews, Paranormal romance, Romantic suspense by rebeccabook17

The seventeenth book I finished in 2014 was The Haunting of Josie by Kay Hooper. I finished this book on 3/17/14. I rated this book 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5. This was the first book I’ve read by this author.

Overall this was a cute story and a quick read. Since it was so quick though I thought it went a bit too fast and the plot/characters were a little underdeveloped for my tastes. This story is about Josie Douglas who retreats to a quiet country house to complete her research in trying to vindicate her father. She becomes infatuated with her landlord, much to her dismay, and also becomes involved in the mystery of the ghost who wanders the house she’s staying in.

I love it when a book ties everything out in the end. I think that’s one of the things I found frustrating in this book, there was discussion of a villain who set hotels on fire but the question was never addressed and she never cleared her father’s name before the end of the book. I just found this disappointing as I felt like there should have been more resolution there.

Overall it was an ok book though and was a quick read at only 212 pages so if you’re looking for a quick and interesting suspense then this would be a good one. Be prepared to feel unresolved at the end though. I have heard that this is a good author so I will likely try another of her books but I wouldn’t return to this one I don’t think.

Link to author website: http://www.kayhooper.com/

Link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/The-Haunting-Josie-Kay-Hooper/dp/0553590472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395152100&sr=8-1&keywords=the+haunting+of+josie