It’s time for me to catch up on my backlog of book reviews, so I’ve grouped these romantic suspense books into this bundled review.

Now, I’ve long admired the way The Book Smugglers structured their review post, and since one of the Top 10 Things I’ve resolved to do this year is to be more disciplined about posting, I figured that having a good structure to emulate would help a lot in clearing the backlog, so with a little bit of tweaking and my own creative interpretation, here are my opinions of Kill Me Twice and Thrill Me to Death by Roxanne St. Claire.

Title: Kill Me Twice
Author: Roxanne St. Claire
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Pocket
Year Published : 2005

Stand alone or series: Book #1 in the Bullet Catcher series

Why I read it: Having read books 4 to 6 for the TBR Challenge hosted by Avidreader Keishon last year, and enjoyed them tremendously, I thought it was a good idea to back track and go back to the series debut which began this sexy, thrilling series.

On the Back cover:

WATCH YOUR BACK

Alex Romero is the hottest “Bullet Catcher” in the business. Tall, dark, and deadly if necessary, this high-priced bodyguard’s got the muscle and the moves — especially when it comes to the ladies. Alex can keep his beautiful clients out of danger, but sometimes they can’t keep their hands off of him. Now Alex has one last chance to prove he belongs among the elite force known as The Bullet Catchers, but his assignment is stacked…against him.

WATCH YOUR HEART

Private investigator Jasmine Adams is fiercely independent and fearless under pressure — she doesn’t need some hunk-for-hire’s help to catch the creep stalking her twin sister. But when Jazz uncovers bigger forces targeting her sister for death, she’s glad to have Alex’s brain and brawn handy. From the steamy streets of Miami to the sultry beaches of Key West, Alex and Jazz try to fight temptation as they race to keep a madman from fulfilling his promise to kill not just once, but twice. And some temptations are too powerful to resist….

The theme for October’s TBR chal­lenge was a hor­ror book, which is a real challenge for me, as I’ve not picked up a horror book since V C Andrews nor watched a horror movie after Poltergeist 3 and Omen 3.

Ever since reading Keishon’s guest post at Borders True Romance blog, I had a craving for some mysteries, thrills and spills.  So as an alternative to horror, I decided to dedicate October to romantic suspense thrillers, and one of the authors I most wanted to try is Roxanne St. Claire. I was introduced to her when she guest blogged at True Romance, where she talked about her inspiration behind the hero in her latest Bullet Catcher book.

The synopsis of the series hint at an adrenaline-filled roller coaster ride with a melting pot of pulse racing intrigue, heart thumping action, in and out of bed. Boy, did Rocki deliver the goods. Well, since I started with book 4, First You Run , and realized that it’s a linked trilogy, I automatically bought Then You Hide and Now You Die, and enjoyed all three tremendously. Without further ado, here’s my review of the three books:

“I need to find a woman. I don’t know who she is or where she is. And when I find her, chances are I’m going to get her naked, rock her world, and then make her wish I were dead.” Bullet Catcher Adrien Fletcher (Fletch) told his boss, Lucy Sharpe, in First You Run .

With lines like that, how could you resist the rest of the book?

My DIK pick for the February TBR Challenge is a romantic suspense novel by Jayne Ann Krentz.

Ms Krentz is no stranger to me. I’ve read her other historical romances penned under Amanda Quick, but this would be the first contemporary suspense I’ve read of hers. Good thing I decided to pick it up too, ‘coz I couldn’t put it down until I finished it. It really is a book worth staying up All Night Long to finish.

Without giving the entire plot away, this fast-paced potboiler set in the sleepy village of Dunster kept me turning the page chasing down the mystery and scandal surrounding a series of unexplainable violence and death. The story started with a flashback to 15 years ago, when Irene Stenson returned home after a late night out with then best friend Pamela Webb, only to discover her parents in a gruesome murder-suicide.

Reading Anne Stuart’s Ice storm was a natural progression for me since I’ve been following this particular spy suspense series when it first debut with Black Ice.

This time round, it’s Ice Queen Isobel Lambert, the head of the committee who is being hunted down by an archenemy who wants her eliminated at all cost. Sent by the backers of the committee to retrieve the unscrupulous Serafin ‘The Raptor’, in exchange for the intelligence he’s trading to the committee for amnesty and freedom, Isobel suffered more than the usual amount of accidents.  The fact that Serafin himself is a much wanted, ruthless spy with no ethics whatsoever, selling his secrets out to the highest bidder pumps up the drama factor with assassins, car chases and bombings dogging their every step to sanctuary. Unbeknownst to her team mates, Isobel has a history with Serafin, a.k.a Killian, and as the story unfolds, the reader finds out why Isobel turned out the way she did.

It’s been two crazy weeks of non-stop preparation for the launch of another website, and the company annual dinner, so much so that now that the party’s over and we’ll know for sure if the site’s ready for take-off on Monday, I find myself with some time on hand, so what better thing to do than a quick catch up on all those review posts. So here goes …

Now, Crazy Cool by Tara Janzen, has been on my TBR list ever since Kristie and Cindy, put it on their Top 25 (?) lists two years ago. So, it was with much anticipation that I finally got a hold of one copy and settled down to read. Hmmm … the action scenes, the suspense (two murder mysteries to solve) and the build-up of romantic tension were what I expected, so no complaints there. However, I did find one or two of the detours e.g. Kidd and whats-her-name making out, a little annoying. Overall, this book is packed with equal amounts of romance, adventure, action and suspense to provide an entertaining evening read.

It’ll probably be no big surprise for you to hear that I enjoyed reading The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheevers by Julia Quinn and The Pleasure Trap by Elizabeth Thornton tremendously. In fact, I reread both books a week after finishing them just to relive certain well-written scenes in both books.

In The Secret Diaries, the heroine Miranda has long been secretly in love with the older brother of her best friend, Viscount Turner, since the tender age of ten when the dashing young gent kissed her hand and solemnly promised that she would someday grow into herself and become as beautiful as she was already smart. Even as Turner’s marriage suffered and he became an embittered widower, she never stopped loving him.

Turner has always admired her intelligence, but he has become dark and broody, and cynical about the emotion called love. As he emerged from his own personal prison, he found himself intrigued by and drawn to Miranda.  Being distrustful of love, he let himself be persuaded that it was just lust and desire that drove him to take her innocence and honour that make him take her to wife. How is a woman going to convince a man who doesn’t believe in love that it was really love the feel for each other? I’m not going to give the plot away here, so you’re going to have to read the book yourself.