Dangerous Secrets by Lisa Marie Rice

I've gotten several very enthusiastic recommendations for books by Lisa Marie Rice from people whose taste is similar to mine. I didn't enjoy Midnight Man , but was told that I should try Dangerous Secrets before making up my mind about the author. Unfortunately it seems that Ms. Rice is not the author for me.

Nicholas Ireland is a former Delta Force operator, now working as a high-level undercover agent. His current cover is Nick Ames, a man who made a fortune on Wall Street and has retired to rural Vermont to contemplate his next move. He's actually in town tracking a Russian novelist and former political prisoner who is secretly an arms dealer/terrorist. (Imagine Alexander Solzhenitsyn as a member of the Russian mob plotting to detonate a dirty bomb.)

To get close to the Russian Nick has to first get close to the town librarian, Charity Prewitt. Charity has become friends with the Russian, unaware that he is obsessed with her because he believes her to be the reincarnation of his long dead lover, who was murdered by the Soviet secret police. Nick's attempts to remain professional and focused on the case start to fall apart when he developes an instant attraction to Charity.

All of that information was provided in the first 20 or so pages and at that point I was already thinking that there was a bit too much going on for my taste. It seemed like the book equivilent of what Tim Gunn refers to as "a whole lotta look". Unfortunatley things went down hill from there and as the story went on I found myself having major problems.

Both this book and Magic Man featured the Alpha male/little lady dynamic. I like a good Alpha as much as the next girl, but the little lady thing gets on my last nerve and this was a pretty exaggerated version. All the descriptions of Charity emphasized how small, delicate and dainty she was. During their first dinner date Nick was actually turned on by the fact that Charity was such a neat eater. When she dabbed her mouth with her napkin he thought to himself that it was unnecessary because she was so graceful she would never be sloppy enough to actually need a napkin. What is that about? Since when does needing a napkin make you some sort of unfeminine slob?

After their dinner Nick had to drive Charity home because the roads were icy and she didn't have snow tires on her car. Charity was supposedly a native of Vermont, the story took place in November and the weather was already bad. Why didn't she have snow tires? Either she wasn't half as smart as the book said she was, or it was a totally illogical plot point thrown in strictly so that Nick could do his Alpha thing and protect her by driving her home. Irritating either way. That was the point when I began to suspect that I wasn't going to finish the book. In my experience nitpicking something like snow tires is a pretty sure sign that a book just isn't working for me. Because I was still less than a quarter of the way through and I wanted to give the book a fair shot, I pushed on.

When they got to Charity's house Nick carried her to the door so that her boots wouldn't get dirty. Seriously?

They were so hot for each other that they headed straight to bed. At that point we learned that Nick thinks of his erection as a "blue steeler”. What? If the man's erection is blue he has a serious issue. The term "blue balls" is just an expression.

The book then hit one of my major pet peeves. They didn't have a condom, but decided that it wasn't a problem. Charity dismissed the possibility that Nick might have an STD because he "exuded health and strength". Because of course anyone with an STD is obviously going to look sick. Then Nick made the obligatory statement that he never, ever had unprotected sex and Charity was totally a special case. The fact that Charity wasn't on the pill was also dismissed because she was sure it was the wrong time of the month. TSTL. There are no words for how irritating I find all of that.

The next plot point had Nick finding out that he wasn't just pretending to be a millionaire. No, he had actually become a millionaire thanks to his best friend the billionaire genius investor who made it his life's mission to make Nick rich.

At that point I just gave up because there was nowhere that the book could go that would redeem it for me. Ms Rice is a competent writer, but I simply don't enjoy her characters or her plots.

Grade: DNF