While it’s been a little while since her last novel, Lara Lacombe was a category romance autobuy from me ever since I read her debut, Deadly Contact, for review back in 2013. When I saw that this month’s TBR Challenge theme was “Not in Kansas anymore”, I figured the opening book in the 2016 Doctors in Danger trilogy would be the perfect fit. After all, the heroine in Enticed by the Operative fits the category in more ways than one. Not only are these leads far from home, but they’ve been thrown into the middle of a criminal operation. The plot centers on plastic surgeon Olivia Sandoval. Dr. S ..read more

The Family Man is a promising start to a new romantic suspense series, The Mind Hacker, from new-to-me author AJ Rose featuring a small team of special agents who work for the FBI’s Behavioural Analysis Unit. There are a few stock-in-trade tropes here and the author sometimes gets bogged down with too much description and explanation, but I enjoyed the story overall. The action sequences are tense, the sex scenes are hot and the two leads are interesting and likeable. Their relationship is in the early stages here, but that’s pretty much what I expect from book one in a same-couple series, an ..read more

I’ve become a fan of Eli Easton’s over the past couple of years, and although I wasn’t wowed by RJ Scott’s foray into romantic suspense (the Lancaster Falls series), I decided to give this first book in their new Lake Prophet Mysteries collaboration a go. I enjoyed Solstice on the whole – the mystery plot isn’t especially complex and the bad guy is telegraphed a mile off, but having an animal behaviourist as one of the leads is unusual and I liked that the mystery has a slightly different angle as a result. Gabriel Thompson, a former undercover cop in LA, has returned to the hometown he left ..read more

If you could do the Time Warp back to 2001, you might love Stacey Abrams’ re-release, The Art of Desire. Nowadays Abrams isn’t separating her powerhouse political brilliance behind the romantic suspense pseudonym of Selena Montgomery, but in this re-issue, she’s thrust her literary chops back two decades to a time when she was an emerging author with a scattershot storyline that included ALL the stuff. Phillip Truman is a former congressman with a side hustle at the ISA – the International Security Agency. His last assignment lasted about three years longer than intended, and he spent them un ..read more

A missing, possibly murdered, child. A skeptical cop. A psychic turned scientist. A painful love triangle. These are the elements Julia Heaberlin uses to weave an enthralling tale of love, loss, and lies in Night Will Find You. It’s a gripping story; once you pick it up, you won’t want to put it down until the very end. When her mother dies, Vivvy (Vivian) Bouchet agrees to pack up the family home and prepare it for sale. It is the least she can do since her sister, Brig, had taken on the heavy load of caring for their mother during her illness. But being back in her hometown isn’t easy. Her ..read more

I have thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca Zanetti’s Laurel Snow series, and this third installment, You Can Die, is another stellar hit. It’s a thrilling procedural filled with well-developed characters and a plausible, engaging plot. Laurel’s field office in Genesis Valley is now operational, and she’s chugging along at a good groove. It’s a little worrisome to learn there’s another serial killer in her neck of the woods, (pretty much cementing my decision to continue residing elsewhere in the lower 48!) Her community is lucky to have her because Laurel proves time and again that her analytical int ..read more

Nicky James takes a short break from her fabulous Valor and Doyle series with this new standalone romantic suspense title, Everything I Didn’t Know. I have to confess to something of a fascination with cults and how they operate, so the premise of this novel – a young man whose eyes have been opened to the corruption at the heart the community in which he lives and who longs to escape – appealed to me immediately and made this one of my most anticipated reads of the summer. And Ms. James doesn’t disappoint; it’s a cracking story full of creepy vibes and slowly building tension that had me ho ..read more

G.B. Gordon’s Bottom Line is the sequel to 2022’s By the Book and the second in the Follow the Money series, about an FBI agent working white collar crimes and the younger forensic accountant with whom he becomes romantically involved while investigating an elaborate money laundering scheme. The story was perhaps a bit formulaic, but it was well done and I enjoyed it, although I had reservations about the romance, which, while it had plenty of chemistry was rather under-developed. Still, I was invested enough in finding out what would happen next to pick up Bottom Line – but while the p ..read more

Sandra Brown is one of the few authors I read who receives a wide range of grades from me. I have given her both As and Fs and pretty much everything in between. Out of Nowhere is on the lower end of in-between – it has some of her trademark mistakes combined with some of the points that have made her a bestselling author for over three decades. Going to the county fair was an impulse decision for single mom Elle Portman. She had spent the morning and afternoon working on her latest book and felt she owed it to her two-year-old son Charlie to give him an enjoyable evening. He has fun on the ..read more

Toronto’s finest are back in book six of Nicky James’ compelling romantic suspense series featuring detectives Quaid Valor and Aslan Doyle, Disrupted Engagement. Once again, the author skilfully weaves together an intriguing mystery with the ongoing development of the romantic relationship between the central couple, which has been absolutely stellar throughout. The title of this one gives away a fair bit – although if you’ve been following the series and recall how the last book ended (how could you not??) it’s not exactly a spoiler. After almost a year together, and weathering good times a ..read more