I loved this book! After meeting Aslin in Love’s Rhythm I was excited to read more about him. What’s not to love about a big, badass former SAS commando (“so the Commando goes commando.” *snort*) and Rowan, she’s seriously kick-ass. I also really liked the suspense element in their story. There were just enough suspects that it kept you guessing. I hate when I can figure out the mysterious bad guy too soon. As I have come to expect from Lexxie the love scenes are scorching hot! This is a shorter novel so the characters do fall in love (and even declare it fairly quickly) but I like love at first sight stories. All in all an excellent continuation of the series and my favorite so far. This is the first book I have read of this author and I note it is linked to a previous book so not sure if my reading out of sequence has impacted on my enjoyment of it. The story centres on Aslin Rhodes – an ex special forces soldier from the UK who for the last 16 years has been the personal bodyguard in the US for a rock star who has now retired. Hence Aslin finds himself at a moot point in his career when his boss offers his services to an actor out in Australia. Rowan Hemsworth is the sister of the actor and is a kick ass martial arts specialist. She has always felt protective of her younger sibling ever since they both witnessed their parent’s murder in a burglary gone wrong in their home. From reading the blurb I thought this book would be right up my street but I found myself struggling with the relationship development. At the start Rowan was against getting involved with Aslin but kept having fantasies about what she would do with him. We also had the same fantasies from Aslin but nothing seemed to be going anywhere until one night he drags her into an alley (yes very classy) which then starts the “ I want you, I don’t want you” dance which I find so annoying. But then whoo hoo they actually get to do the deed in his trailer and then follows with a night of passion in his hotel room. It is in this night that the relationship moves on but did the reader get to see this? NO. A whole chapter could have been written about this. So you can see the frustration of not understanding what happened to change the relationship and what had happened in that hotel room. This left me feeling left out of the loop as though the author was keeping secrets.Other things annoyed me, especially him talking to himself and calling himself “boyo” – was he Welsh? Not that that would matter anyway it was just repetitive. As for the action going on his zipper – get on with it already man! I also wasn’t hooked on his name but guess that’s just something I could have got over.I can’t say it wasn’t entertaining it was just OK but the suspense elements were rather predictable. Anyway an OK read for me but I can see other readers have loved this book so it’s just one of those not for me at this time. It wouldn’t put me off reading this author again; in fact I have the book that precedes this one on my kindle. I might enjoy that better due to it being about a rock star and that is my current kink right now in any genre!
What do You think about Muscle For Hire (2013)?
this was such a great book. I really enjoyed the characters. I would really like to see chris' story
—marisa
