Brief Thoughts: Cutting Loose

Cutting Loose
by Tara Janzen
Book 8 of Steele Street

She's the unsuspecting beauty with something everybody wants.

He's the secret agent in so deep nobody can find him.

Until now...

CIA operative Zachary Prade made his name taking out world threats. But now he’s tracking a very different kind of danger and her name is Lily Robbins. Lily holds the key to a valuable encoded file that’s about to fall into the wrong hands. All Zach has to do is retrieve the key and forget the rain-soaked beauty who came to his Central American plantation seeking shelter from more than the weather.

Lily knows him as Alejandro Campos, the seductive drug lord who saved her life. They met when she traveled to El Salvador to film a documentary…and got caught in the middle of a nasty drug-and-guerrilla war. Now, back in the U.S., hunted by spooks and assassins, Lily has to trust Campos again. Except his name isn’t Campos, and he’s arousing a passion so hot it’s criminal. That is, if they can survive long enough to enjoy it…

Cutting Loose still didn't feel like the reason why I ended up loving these Steele Street books, but it DID get right back into the heart of it's absurdly entertaining factor. There are guns, there are cars, and there's the hot and steamy sex... of which our couple seems to manage over a very long period of time. Whew! There's high speed chase from danger, but no gun fights or explosions.

And it wasn't until nearing the end of the book that I realized that the entire setting of this 400 page book takes place over the time frame of one day. Only the first couple and last couple chapters are not part of the one day. And so that's when I felt a slightly bit more impressed--because for a book that manages to drag out an entire day of cat and mouse chase between several players, the progression actually flew by pretty quickly.

I hadn't even been aware that things were happening, because I kept thinking that we weren't in the middle of the conflict yet... and yet we technically were. If that makes any sense.

These books don't make any sense.

So this review probably doesn't make any sense either.

Anyway...

While Lily and Zach were interesting characters, this wouldn't be the first time in this series where we didn't get enough of a chance to get to know the main couple. And so, while you learn a few things about them as the story progresses, we really barely skim the surface of these two character's biographies. Even Lily barely knows who Zach is until the end of the book. The two of them are running from danger together, with secrets as the giant pink elephant in the backseat of Zach's Shelby Cobra Mustang.

And yet, somehow, they managed to make this partnership work. Somehow, they develop a rather believable romance, even if most of it is based off of lust and adrenaline. Somehow, I found the two of them rather intriguing.

Meanwhile, we get to meet previous characters, which I love doing, because usually I end up loving previous books' main characters as side characters. They tend to be much more fun when they aren't center stage, ya know. Unfortunately, like some of the previous books in this series, you also get introduced to a random secondary couple who kind of also manages to hog some book time along with other side characters... and you'd rather just get back to the main couple and learn more about them.

Entertaining book. Lots of potential. Lots of crazy.

***