No. Non. Nein. Naaaaaah. Nahi. Illa. Nope. Not happening. Never.
Oh, where, oh where do I start? I wouldn't be satisfied giving this book fucking zero stars! So, one of them ridiculously hot mercenary guys, black ops or whatever has to investigate this feisty, charming, and of course utterly and completely gorgeous woman who owns an antique shop or something, because
her brother
, who is a pilot, is supposedly a mole in the DEA, selling drugs to teens that cause hallucinations, and ultimately death. Yeah, yeah, the plot sounds like a complex motherfucker; the only fucking that happened, though, of course, other than inside my mind, was between Josh and Trish.
So Trish is this recovering alcoholic, who's also the owner of some antique store. She's some self-proclaimed expert in 15th century history or something, who's participating in some reality show about antiques, and winning the show would propel her shop to the pinnacle of antique shops or something. She needs this expert on antiques as a celebrity guest to win the show. I mean, what? At this point, I stopped taking the book seriously. She's made to attend benefits and all that, and who should volunteer as her date but supa stuuuuuud Josh? It gets worse. So they just met that day, and by the end of the day, they've already made out a few times, he's had like 6 erections, and they've come about ye close to doin' the naughty. And this chick has a stalker mind you, and she's sworn off guys, because the last one she was with beat the hell out her. Yeah, super smart, that one, I tell you. Because if you have blond hair, and a chiseled chin, and "cobalt-blue" eyes (duh!), who cares? Go ride that all you want, love. Trish is so, so dumb! She's dumber than a pile of rocks. She has no idea what she's doing, and yet she refuses to ask for help, because she wants to be mature and grown up. Did no one tell you, love? Part of growing up is knowing when you should accept defeat and ask for help. She's also the most naive, trusting buffoon. She'd trust freaking Pennywise the Dancing Clown if he came up to her and said, "hey, I'm harmless". Yeah, no hope for that one. She's the kind of character that dies in a horror movie because she is, for lack of a better word, a dumb fuck. It's like she sold her brain for her sobriety or something. Her stupidity makes my head hurt.
Josh is no less; it's worse because he's an operative or agent or something, but all he cares about are, in this order, Fucking Trish, extracting revenge on the guy that killed his ex-fuck buddy, fucking Trish, discovering who the mole is, cracking stupid dialogues, fucking Trish, and oh, did I mention, fucking Trish. The puddle of water in the bathroom is less shallow than this one. All he needed was to see a hint of her pink panties, and he was as horny as a wild animal in heat. For every other minute in the book from then on. Just take a cold shower, dude. He's supposed to appear like this conflicted, complex person, but quite frankly, he just comes across as a very "attractive" gorilla.
There's this other bunch of secondary characters. Oh, wait, did I say bunch? I meant army. There's Trish's brother Zane, his wife Angel, Trish's bfffffffff Heidi, Trish's other "friend" Leanne, some dude called Gunter, some chick called Olivia, her competitor Xavier (female Xavier), her trainer Arnie, some dude called Bob, a couple of detectives, Josh's adoptive parents, his "uncle" Ty, his bffffff and boss Sabrina, Sabrina's ex-lover Gabe, another bfffffff Dingo, random black ops agents Ryder and Ferrari, his ex lover Chelsea, some dead dude named Colbert, CIA slime Rikker, Senator Witherspoon, Senator Dixon, Jesus Christ, Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Orc army from Lord of the Rings. By the time I figured out the relationship between these empty shells, the book was freaking over. And it wasn't a short read, mind you, nay, this was 400 motherfucking pages long. Spare me the crap.
There's basically random scenes of investigation, stake-outs, characters trying hard as they can to be badass, and lots of horniness and sex. Everyone in Miami is a horndog, folks! Or so this book says. Also, it was about as predictable as the end of Cinderella. There was no OMG factor. Except, when they almost had sex the day they met. And not in a one-night stand kinda way, no, in a I'm giving you part of my soul kinda way. Also, the story just loses its way in the middle. Things stop making sense, and not in a Metamorphosis kinda way, but in a "I just fell asleep while typing" kinda way. The coincidences in this book are ridiculous. Of course, even trained specialists who're supposed to be so smart, they're the most elite of the elite don't get. Can I be an agent here? I'm actually smart.
Things I learnt after reading this book: Even published writers don't get the difference between 'raise' and 'rise'. A phoenix rises from its ashes, Ms. Love, it does not raise from its ashes.
Also that I really hope Ms. Love didn't name her kids the way she named her characters. What the fuck kind of name is Dingo, yo? A Dingo is a species of dog, not what you name a human.
Zero stars. Fuck you, Love.