Friday, May 1, 2009

Night Watch by Suzanne Brockmann ****

Finally! I'm done with Tall, Dark and Dangerous, ending with Wes's story.

It was slightly better than Bobby's story, but once again a SEAL is attracted to a sister, and tries to keep his distance. The 2 twists on the "can't boink a SEAL's sister" theme are that it's a sister-in-LAW, and he has a major crush on another SEAL's wife too, so he's conflicted.

Wes has always had a thing for Lana Quinn, "the mighty" Quinn's wife. And Mighty Quinn is a cheater to boot - he's always out hounddogging with the single guys, picking up chicks in bars and pretty much being an asshole. In fact, Lana actually says to Wes she figures if anything happened to Quinn, she and Wes would get together.

So when he goes on a blind date with Brittany, it's just as a favor to Melody and Cowboy. But hey - Brittany GETS him. She understands him. And there's some major chemistry going on too. OK, another conflict is Brittany's adopted, college-age son - only this kid's great, and he wants Wes in his mom's life, so it isn't really a conflict.

And the blurb on the back gives away another conflict point - because suddenly Lana is free. That actually happens right at the end, and once again doesn't actually present much of a conflict. It's just Wes's insecurities and Brittany's mixed messages that keep them apart. When yet another conflict pops up - which truly comes out of the blue for me - Wes steps in with his SEALs to save the day and the woman.

At least Brittany has the presence of mind to actually follow Wes's orders to save herself when that comes up, instead of charging some UZI-toting terrorist like that other TSTL heroine. 4 stars, and it's a Serial Readers Challenge submission too.

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