Big Sky Dynasty
by B. J. Daniels
Harlequin Intrigue, 2009, ISBN #978-0-373-69404-4
Romantic Suspense
Dalton Corbett’s secret past ad finally caught up with him and taken residence above Whitehorse’s knit shop –owned by the unsuspecting and sweet Georgia Michaels. Althought Georgia had no reason to mistrust the woman she’d just rented to, Dalton knew how dangerous and deadly she was… just as he knew that Georgeia was the type of girl his mother hoped he’d marry. Unwilling to see Georgia hurt, he devoted himself to ensuring her safety –and the more time he spent with her, the more he realized that she was the woman for him. But would his secrets jeopardize his brothers’ marriage pact and put the next Corbett bride in danger?
I was quite happy to read this book, after I picked it up at Conference, because I’ve never read a HQN Intrigue and I was, well, intruged… until about a dozen pages into the book.
The dream sequence as an opening scene should have clued me in that I was in for a laborious read, but when the author ended the scene with this hook
Because Nicci was dead.
He should know. He was the one who’d killed her.
I thought that perhaps the author was going to get things moving along. Not really. The story swung from info-dump to something mildly interesting like the above quote to info-dump again. I put it down about pg 15 and almost left it for another story. But, since it was a gift at RWA, I forced myself to try again.
Nicci, the aforementioned dead woman, and Dalton’s secret wife from nine-years ago turns out to be not so dead, afterall. She’s appeared suddenly in this little town and is bent on toying with Dalton while fooling poor Georgia that she’s a victim. The characterization of Nicci worked really well. She was actually quite a bit creepy, with her neat set ups of situations that featured Dalton as bullying-husband-fighting-divorce and herself and stalked-tormented-wife. She befriends Georgia under pretext of building a support network, but she’s really most interested in building allies in the coming standoff with Dalton. Eventually, the Intrigue in the story kept my interest in this book. And, it’s a good thing too, because the romance part never would have.
You see, the chemistry between Dalton and Georgia was virtually non-existant. By about pg 160 (out of 211, mind you) there wasn’t even a hint of attraction between the two, they were too distracted with what Nicci was ‘up to’. What little time was spent on romantic interest between the couple was rushed and forced and not even mildly interesting. No chemistry. No tension. But I kept reading the last little bit for the Intrigue. What, after all of this running around, was the motivation behind this woman to disappear for nine years and suddenly reappear?
Well, I don’t want to put a spoiler out here and reveal the ending, so let me suffice to say I wasn’t overwhelmed with a zippy ending.
Not recommended.
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