Review - - WIRED

WIRED
By Julie Garwood
Publisher: Berkley
Release Date: July 4, 2017
Reviewed by Maria Lokken

Allison Trent is in her last year of college. She also happens to be a drop-dead gorgeous computer genius, who models on the side. The modeling gigs allow her to make the money she’s forced to fork over to her lying, cheating, aunt and uncle who raised her. Their beloved son has criminal tendencies, and they need the money to pay top-notch lawyers to keep him out of jail.

Allison spends most nights on campus, in her room with her headphones on, hacking into sites and solving crimes no other government agency can. She’s a modern-day Robin Hood, returning monies to people who’ve been scammed. It’s illegal, but hey, she’s only helping out people who shouldn’t have been robbed in the first place. 

Handsome, sexy, Liam Scott is an FBI agent. Liam needs Allison’s hacking skills to find the leak that’s wreaking havoc at the FBI headquarters and preventing them from solving crimes.

Liam and his partner somehow manage to convince Allison to work for them, but only after they promise they will help keep her good-for-nothing cousin out of jail.  Allison’s desire to help her deceitful relatives is based on a guilt she should have let go of long ago.

The author paints a powerful opening, giving us insight into Allison and creating a strong, independent heroine. However, this heroine had flaws that were difficult to overlook, in particular her continued financial support of a family that had no for regard her. In addition, the romance between Allison and Liam felt thin. Throughout the book, one never gets the sense they are falling in love, nothing builds in their story line.  As a Reader, I had no stake in their staying together.

While the novel starts with a driving pace, it doesn’t keep up and falls short on both the suspense and the romance.

Review -- The Sins of Viscount Sutherland

The Sins of Viscount Sutherland
The Lords of Sheffield Square—Book 1
By Samantha James
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: May 31, 2011

Claire Ashcroft wants revenge. Her brother, Oliver, was killed in a duel and she wants the man responsible for his death to pay. So, Claire comes up with a plan to settle the score. She pretends to be a widow and intends to make the disreputable Viscount Sutherland fall in love with her so she can then break his heart. What she doesn’t realize is that the viscount has no intention of falling in love—he only seeks to have her in his bed because his heart was broken and closed off years ago.

Grayson Sutherland has been down the path of love and was burned, but not in the usual way. He has since gone from mistress to mistress and that’s the way he likes it: no strings attached. When he meets Claire, he is instantly captivated by her beauty and delighted to discover she is a widow. Her innocent manner clashes with her widow status and that intrigues him even more. But when all secrets are revealed, who will win?

I have enjoyed Samantha James’s books in the past and am a huge fan of The Secret Passion of Simon Blackwell (which was one of my favorite books of 2007), but unfortunately The Sins of Viscount Sutherland was a miss for me. And it’s a shame because it was an interesting storyline and I really liked Gray! You all know that I love me some sexy rakes with dark secrets and he fit the bill quite nicely. However, I didn’t care for Claire at all. To me, she just wasn’t a likable character. As I continued reading, I kept hoping and hoping that she would grow on me, but she never did. Her behavior changed from composed to angry so often and so quickly that I found myself wondering what Gray could possibly see in her. And just when I thought she was finally going in the right direction—bam!—she’d do or say something that made me want to strangle her again. I can easily forgive a heroine if she starts off that way and matures through the course of the book, but Claire was acting that way until almost the very end. And it’s hard to root for someone like that. I can only hope that Ms. James’s next book will feature a heroine I can connect with. In the meantime, I recommend giving this book a pass.

~Andrea