Heidi Hart

Despite being constantly tempted to DNF this, I pushed through and finished it, only because I like Meredith Duran and I held out hope until the very end that she'd turn this around. She didn't. Although well-written and featuring sympathetic main characters, this book totally fell flat for me. Though the plot has plenty of action and drama -- poisonings, international intrigue, thrilling rescues, daring escapes, kidnappings, spies, hostage situations -- the narrative was so bogged down by the main characters' introspective navel gazing that, despite all the action, the story dragged and lacked excitement. The hero and heroine each had intriguing and sympathetic back-stories, but they were so self-absorbed and so self-pitying, that I couldn't bring myself to give a damn. 

And the romance? What romance? It takes more than half the book for the hero and heroine to begin to trust each other, even more for them to begin to like each other, and about 85% of the book before they begin to be honest with each other. Their conflict isn't even the typical "opposites attract" trope, though -- they're not opposites, and they don't really attract. They're not sparking against each other in a way that is exciting or snappy or full of sexual tension: they're just bumbling along, getting in one another's way. There is a climactic scene toward the very end of the story where they're arguing and holding a gun on one another, and I think the reader is supposed to think it is some kind of foreplay, but it's just disturbing, dark, and dangerous. That scene is emblematic of the whole book: maybe someone with more tolerance for dark and twisty melodrama would enjoy this book, but to me it just felt disturbing, contrived, and honestly, pretty goddamn DULL.