Review: Maverick

Title: Maverick
Author: Lora Leigh
Page Count: 354 pages
Publisher: St. Martin's
Genre: Romanic Suspense
Copy for review compliments of the public library

50 words or less: Risa is a battered but not broken woman trying to move past a horrible ordeal. Micah is a dead man who signed away his life and freedom to be a part of a team of elite operatives. Sounds impossible, doesn't it?

One thing I'm really enjoying about this Elite Ops series is that the author is taking the chance to wrap up loose ends from other books. We first met Risa Clay in a whole different series, and when we last left off she'd been institutionalized after a brutal abduction and rape, but now she's out and the agents need her help to catch a vicious assassin who's apparently now after her.

This is a really useful book. If you need a good cry, just read a few chapters and BAM you're all set. Even if this wasn't a Lora Leigh book (which means there are more sex scenes than you can shake a stick at, no pun intended) this title would be getting a Scandalous Books designation just because of the thematic content and the issues that Risa goes through with her abusive father. Some of this stuff, I think, could definitely be triggering for some people. It does add emotional depth to the story, but there were a few sections that were decidedly hard to read. Ye be warned.

As with a lot of romantic suspense novels, the suspense plot took a definite backseat to the romance plot. I don't take umbridge at this fact, I'm just pointing it out, because you have to wonder- how many players are in this weird spy/assassin/secret government agency game that all the characters in this series are involved with? Wouldn't people start to notice after awhile if the same people kept popping up over and over again at secret arms deals and nefarious goings-on? I mean, granted, it's a fictional story, but I feel like eventually, someone somewhere would have a serious case of deja-vu, which would be bad news for uber-secret government operatives.

Anyway, as I've said in other Lora Leigh book reviews, it's probably best to start any of her series from the beginning- Wild Card is the first book in this particular one. It gets hard after awhile to keep track of who's who and what they're doing in the book, but the romance and the happily ever after make up for it most of the time. And in this case, the happily ever after was certainly worth waiting for. Cheers to moving on and getting on with your life.

Overall Grade: B