08 November 2012

Intimate Danger, by Amy J. Fetzer

Synopsis: Clancy McRae is mad as hell. Charged with creating technology-enhanced troops, she's discovered her top-secret nano-device has been surgically implanted in four U.S. Marines without her approval. Though it makes them smarter, faster, and stronger than any human on earth, in this untested stage it can also drive them insane - or kill them. Now she's stolen classified data, risking her career - and her life - to go after them.

While recovering from a shoulder wound, Spec Ops leader Mike Gannon learns the rest of his team was dropped into the jungles of Peru to locate a chilling new weapon. Then: nothing, nada. Injured or dead, it's his duty to bring them home and destroy the threat. But when a scrappy red-haired beauty butts into his rescue mission, insisting the government turned his men into lab rats, Mike doesn't believe her - till she becomes a moving target.

Keeping Clancy with him keeps her safe, yet as the tropical temperatures rise with their passion, Mike and Clancy are ensnared in a labyrinth of ingenious deceptions concealing a peril no one suspects - and only they can stop. In the dark forgotten Andes, they unearth a deadly plan and an ancient menace that turns a rescue into the crucial fight for their very survival.

And the clock is ticking...


First line: Some people were a waste of human tissue.

Stats for my copy: Trade paperback, published by Kensington Publishing Corp, 2007.

My thoughts: It took me a bit to get into this book, though I was hooked on Mike within a few pages. Clancy wasn't introduced until page 9, and she took a little longer to appeal to me. Until they actually met, I was more interested in Mike's parts of the story than hers.

While I love military heroes in romance novels, I think I prefer reading about them stateside. Crashing around in the jungles of some foreign country just doesn't really do it for me. With a plot like this, I tend to get a little lost in all the military and scientific talk. And there's a lot of it. And it gets pretty detailed - I certainly felt like the author knew what she was talking about even when I didn't.

Once Clancy and Mike finally met and began to interact with each other, I loved the banter between them. And I liked that while Clancy is a military girl herself, having served in Desert Storm, she's not just all tough and fearless. While struggling to keep up with Mike in the jungle, she often whines about how tired she is, and in one scene where their lives were in danger she whimpers with fear. Mike is the definition of the macho Alpha hero, but then he'll pull her close and is tender and encouraging. Of course attraction flares up, and eventually they share a kiss. And then another one here and there.

There was a subplot about an archeological dig that, while it was tied into the overall plot, still seemed irrelevant and extraneous. I felt those sections could have been removed and it wouldn't have made a difference.

I'd not read anything by this author before, so I don't know if all of her books are in this type of setting or not. But she did a great job with the two main characters, and based on that I do want to read more by her.

And a quick search of my TBR pile has revealed that I have one of her other books - TELL IT TO THE MARINES, a collection of stories which I bought at Half Price Books about a year ago because it just sorta jumped off the sale shelf at me. If the heroes are anything like Mike, then I'm sure I'll enjoy it!

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