Sinful Business, #1
Marie Astor
Self-Pub, May 2014
Kindle, 225 Pages
Also available in paperback
Genre(s) contemporary romance, office romance
Source Author’s rep
Other books in this series
Baiting Trouble #2
My Disclaimer:
I was provided a complimentary copy of this book. I am voluntarily providing an honest review in which all opinions are fully my own. I am not being compensated in any way.
~ Judi E. Easley for Blue Cat Review
What it’s about…
Allyson “Ally” Roberts has just lost everything – her father, her fortune, and her fiance. Someday she’s going to get even with the guy who took it all from her.
She’s offered an interview with the DOE and is immediately hired. She’s now going into three months of tough covert training.
Jake Morrissey was the agency’s top field agent until a young woman died. Now he’s teaching new recruits. Can he teach Ally well enough to catch the one who’s responsible for taking everything from her?
Together, can they make him pay?
Technical Tidbits…
The cover is so great. It’s that awesome, eye-catching blue! the legs of the couple on the elevator are guaranteed to catch the eye as well. She certainly has great legs.
The storyline is an old one with a new twist. Good job!
The characters are pretty well done. We really get to know Ally. A name I was heartily sick of very quickly. We didn’t get to know Jake quite as well, I don’t think. I love Delilah! She was a lovely element.
The pace was a bit choppy, I felt. There were times I felt we were racing along, and then we were just strolling. Really without reason. We jumped from the midst of their testing angst to Ally was already working for the agency with no transition.
The tension was greatly affected by the pacing such as I mentioned above. I was expecting something more about the testing or some sort of closure for their training portion and suddenly I was thrown into an office with Ally typing away peacefully. I was caught completely off stride. It was confusing and took me some time to transition. I actually looked back a page or two to see if I had skipped some pages.
And this is where you STOP if you don’t want to see any SPOILERS…
The good, the bad, and the ugly…and how much it lit up my life… ✰✰✰✰
As I said, I got really sick of Ally’s name early on. Actually, by about the second chapter I’d had enough of it. For some reason, it just grated on my nerves, that little nickname. I would have rather called her Allyson. That Ally, Ally, Ally drove me nuts! It stopped sounding like a name.
The whole first part of the book was rather predictable but enjoyable. Wealthy girl planning what to wear to her engagement party and all of a sudden her father’s company crashes for some reason. Father goes to prison where he later dies. Fiance’s family distances themselves and then he does, too. Young woman left to find her own way in the world.
What wasn’t so predictable was the interview by the DOE for intelligence gathering and sort of espionage. Who would think that the department of energy would be recruiting for that? Not me. Then when they got into the training, it sort of sounded like boot camp for the military until it came to sex ed. We didn’t have sex ed that taught us how to, it was more how not to. With the Delilah character added in, I thought it was a great twist. Actually, I felt it could have gone further along those lines. But that’s when everything started building up for test angst and then training was over. It was just too abrupt and without any closure for the training portion.
I love her first assignment. And Jake tries to talk her out of it! Ouch! Such a complete turnabout. It felt wrong, his basically turning against his controller. That whole bit there didn’t feel right. But the assignment was great. I know it’s not real, but they did it so well. She makes her connection and they set a date for dinner and an art show. She shows up and he does all his bragging once she sees the chip on his keychain. They take down the mark. I loved the way she worked her way through the whole evening keeping her cool and keeping her eyes open. Waiting to see what he was going to do and waiting to see what he would show her. And he finally showed her exactly what she needed to see. That was really well done.
Recommended.
790 wc
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