Saturday, March 5, 2011

A Lot Like Love by Julie James *****

Help! Either I have no life or I read/skim too fast - two Julie James books in one day! Truth is, both - I don't have a life and I loved these books so much, I couldn't read fast enough!!

This one is related to Something About You by characters, making it Book #2 in a series of sorts - the hero and heroine from the first book playing minor character roles. Plus, YAY! there is an excerpt from Book #3 and the hero is Kyle! Oh wait, plot:

No lawyers! ::Shock:: Hero is FBI undercover agent Nick McCall, masquerading as Nick Stanton, aka Tall, Dark and Smoldering date of heiress and wine store owner Jordan Rhodes. It's slightly complicated: Jordan's twin brother Kyle shut down Twitter with a DoS attack and is now in prison as a result; FBI needs to get into a classy party that Jordan is invited to, so they offer to reduce Kyle's sentence if she lets an FBI agent accompany her. And it's related to the plot of Book #1 with original bad guy Roberto Martino, now behind bars.

The H/H don't know each other before she is brought into the FBI, so they don't have a We Hate Each Other history, but they manage to annoy each other a little anyway. She's the daughter of a man who made it big in the computer industry - as in, Billionaire - while he's from a slightly lower class Brooklyn background, so there is the element of Not Exactly Made for Each Other.

And Ms. James is ramping up the heat in her books big time. Big. Time. Jordan and Nick start out with sexual innuendos early on, and the chemistry is thick and there is no pussy-footing around. She paints a really terrific character portrait - both characters are smart, sassy and well developed by her prose. It's funny to me that I can sorta see them and experience what they are feeling from their thoughts, but I don't actually have faces for them. But I like them both very much!

She's also ramping up the suspense/thriller plot - not that the reader doesn't know who the bad guys are, they do - but still, having the bad guys get badder does also ramp up the adrenaline while reading. I like it! No, I love it! 5 stars

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