No license needed.
Written: Mar 12 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Comfortable setting, characters that feel like the people next door.
Cons: Plot premise contrived, character motivation shaky sometimes.
The Bottom Line: A decent story, but the faltering plot doesn't make it as strong or as enjoyable as its premise might have been.
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| spalmero's Full Review: Licensed to Marry Books |
In a genre that's big on cowboy-and-baby books, I should have been turned off right from the get-go by the cover on Ms. Douglas' latest book, Licensed to Marry. Take a look at it up there. There's a cowboy. There's a church. And there's the requisite bride.
Surprisingly enough, I wasn't turned off by this book. And, thankfully, a scene like the one depicted on the cover doesn't happen in its 242 pages. I might have choked over descriptions of women in flowing white dresses running across the plains to the stunning man in the black cowboy hat.
Ahem. Where was I?
Ah yes. Licensed to Marry is the third of Harlequin's Montana Confidential books, and the second one I've read. Fortunately, this isn't a book that requires you to have read the other two. Everything's neatly explained.
This volume tells the story of Kyle Foster, one-time police officer in LA, and member of the bomb squad. Kyle has moved to Montana and joined the team out at the Lonesome Pony ranch after losing a partner to a bomb on a short fuse. No pun intended. He's also lost his wife to the stresses of the job, and has brought his daughter, Molly, to a new life with him.
When the book opens, he's been called in on another bomb scare. A bomb has been planted in the capitol building in Montana. The bomb has been planted by this series' evil organization, the Black Order. They are a terrorist group based in the Middle Eastern emirate of Agar, and have been giving the Confidential boys the slip throughout all three books.
Laura Quinlan, and her father Josiah, have arrived at the capitol building that very morning, to have a meeting with Senator Haskel about funding for Josiah's biological warfare research. That is to say, he's researching vaccines and antidotes, not developing the weapons themselves. And it's he who is, apparently, the target for the bombing, and he who pays the price. Josiah is killed.
Laura is trapped in a bathroom with three frightened children by the bomb blast, and left to wait it out, until rescue comes in the form of one handsome, green-eyed cowboy by the name of Kyle Foster.
It's a great set up, it's a fantastic way to introduce characters, and I was rooting for a happy ending right from the very beginning. All good signs.
It's unfortunate that the plotline sputters a bit. The premise behind the rest of the book gives it its title. Laura, needing a way to get Kyle in to the research facility so that he can investigate the theft of some highly dangerous virus samples, comes up with the notion of having him marry her, ostensibly so that no one will question his stepping in to the administration role left by her father, or beefing up the security around the place.
This idea came completely out of left field, and seemed so contrived, and so much like an author-forced plot, that I still have trouble believing that Laura would really come up with it on her own. Yes, Kyle's attractive. Yes, they both have a primal interest in the other, but proposing marriage? Come on.
There is an inevitable blow-up by one of the scientists upon learning that Kyle, an unknown, is taking over the primary administrative role. The blow-up is poorly motivated, and poorly explained. Again, it felt like the author was plugging 'required' events into her story. Likewise, Laura's reaction when she learns that Kyle has evidence linking her father to the Black Order. Her objections are initially over-the-top and then immediately forgotten.
Which is a shame, because I genuinely liked Kyle and Laura. I genuinely enjoyed the story. There were just moments where the story plunged me into disappointment. I wanted the plot to be stronger, better than it was.
I guess sometimes, we don't get what we want.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
spalmero
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Member: Sarah Palmero
Reviews written: 58
Trusted by: 11 members
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