Review: Stolen Justice

Title: Stolen Justice
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Author: DJ Gross
Pub: 2011 by Amazon Digital Services

He's a thief
JT Flynn stole high end art from the world's worst criminals until he lost a member of his team. When a beautiful stranger threatens to expose his thefts unless he steals a Van Gogh, he calls his team together for one last job.

She's a liar
Computer hacker Laura Danvers has many secrets and one goal: to destroy Rob Autrey's money laundering operation at any cost. She needs JT's team of thieves to divert Autrey's attention so she can get the job done.

They’ve got trouble
Forced to work together, Laura and JT come to a grudging mutual respect which heats to a combustible attraction they work to ignore. Passion can’t get in the way of pulling off the high risk heist.

Then a feud between Autrey and one of his clients makes the job even more dangerous. Now the cost of stealing justice may be their lives.

Making the Grade: A

For My Thoughts

Wow! Loved this book from start to finish. For anyone who enjoys Romantic Suspense - this is a must read and for .99 on Amazon, you'd be crazy not to read it.

Sometimes the best books are the ones you have no expectations about, don’t even know anything about and discover quite by accident. I was trolling through Amazon, checking out .99 books and noticed Stolen Justice had quite a few good 5 star reviews. I’ve never heard of this author, but the blurb sounded good and since romantic suspense if my favourite genre, for .99 even if it stunk - no big deal.

Stolen Justice is like a little gem I discovered and it is as far from a stinker as you can get. I loved it!

A sure sign for me about how much I like a book is when I want to read it to the exclusion of doing all else. I was sitting in the dentist office on Friday afternoon and all I could think about was "hurry up so I can get out of this chair so I can finish reading Stolen Justice. I also knew before I was ½ way finished reading that I would be giving it 5 stars.

Laura Danvers is a nerdy geek, Bill Gates smart computer chick and she’s got a plan to bring down a scumbag. To execute her plan she’s going to need JT Flynn and his “crew” to make that happen.

This book was non-stop action with an Ocean’s 11/12 or Mission Impossible feel to it. The plan to bring down Ibank CEO and humanitarian Rob Autrey who is also the scum of the earth running a secret underground website that launders money and is involved in the sex trade (again the “IT” topic of a lot of books I’ve read this year) was complicated, elaborate and dangerous.Laura had the necessary goods on JT and his team to gain his compliance (what’s a little blackmail between friends?) and although JT was pissed at being blackmailed, he felt he had no choice but to agree to help Laura even if it meant risking his team.

JT runs the heist of a famous Van Gogh painting in Rob’s possession like a precise military operation. Every member of his team has a job and he runs a tight ship as the leader of his pack. In reality Laura is the brains behind the operation and she may just have kept a few pertinent details from JT...ohhh boy did she! The twists and turns and secrets revealed as the story progressed kept me on edge and kept me riveted to my IPOD and swiping the pages. Lots of things I didn’t see coming.

The planning and heist take place over only a couple of days and the pace and action is frantic. I loved JT and Laura, the secondary characters in the crew were compelling and the entire story was one of the best RS I’ve read in a while. I scoured the interwebz to see if I could find out if DJ Gross had another book but no luck - I couldn’t even find a webpage for her. I hope she releases another book soon!

Review: With This Fling

Title: With This Fling
Genre: Contemporary
Author: Kelly Hunter
Pub: June 7, 2011 by Harlequin

Successful archaeologist Charlotte Greenstone has no time for men, so invents a convenient one—who bears a highly inconvenient resemblance to sexy stranger Greyson Tyler! To protect her mortifying white lie, Charlotte begs Grey to act as her temporary fiancé….

One glimpse of Charlotte's killer curves, and Grey can't resist making his own outrageous proposition—he'll pretend to be her fiancé… if they can enjoy all the benefits of being a couple! Smoking-hot Grey is definitely fling material, but Charlotte knows that's all it can ever be…. Isn't it?

Making the Grade: B

For My Thoughts

As soon as I started reading this book I couldn’t help but notice the similarities to another book I had recently read.

A young woman makes up a story about a fake fiancé to appease the worries of her dying godmother. Insert Grandma worrying, but not dying about her granddaughter and you’ve got the same set-up as Yours to Keep by Shannon Stacey.

Only in With This Fling you get a more cerebrally matched duo in Associate Professor of Archaeology Charlotte Greenstone and Dr. Greyson Tyler, botanist.

It started out innocently enough and with the best of intentions when Charlotte Greenstone manufactured her imaginary fiancé Thaddeus Jeremiah Gilbert Tyler. Whoaaa that's a mouthful! Her Godmother Aurora was dying and the stories of Gil (as Charlotte called him), eased Aurora’s worries in her final day. And after Aurora passed peacefully...Charlotte killed off Gil as well. No harm, no foul.

Except Charlotte’s co-workers found out about her “fiancé” and before Charlotte knows how to stop the run-away train, her non-existent fiancé arrives in Sydney the form of Dr. Greyson Tyler.

Greyson Tyler’s come to claim his belongings inadvertently sent to the esteemed Dr. Greenstone and really he’s quite understanding as he discovers the part he’s played as Charlotte’s imaginary fiancé. Not one to pass up an opportunity, Greyson decides to take advantage of the situation since it seems he finds himself in need of his own fake fiancée for a family function. Who better to play the part of that loving fiancée than Charlotte herself.

Grey and Charlotte are good together and with all cards on the table they agree to engage in an equally and mutually beneficial relationship with no strings attached. Beside Grey’s a traveller, always on the move for his job and Charlotte’s been there and done that and she’s not interested in doing it again. In the long term they could never have a “real” relationship. Well maybe they could especially with the unexpected surprise they are about to get in say...nine months time.

No they’ve got a whole new set of problems to deal with if they are going to become a real family. It’s going to require compromise, sacrifice and big adjustments to make their relationship work...if it’s even possible.