Fast Track by Julie Garwood

Title: Fast Track
Author: Julie Garwood
Series: Buchanan-Renard #12
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Dutton (July 7, 2014)
Source: NetGalley eArc
Rating: ☕☕☕

Cordelia Kane has always been a daddy’s girl—her father raised her alone after her mother died in a car crash when Cordelia was just two years old. So when he has a serious heart attack, Cordelia is devastated, and the emotion is only intensified by the confusion she feels when he reveals the shocking truth about her mother.

Cordelia can’t suppress her curiosity about the woman who gave birth to her, and when she discovers the answers to her questions lie in Sydney, Australia, she travels there to get them.

Hotel magnate Aiden Madison is Cordelia’s best friend’s older brother. He’s oblivious to the fact that she’s had a crush on him for years. When he gets railroaded into taking her along to Sydney on his company jet, he unknowingly puts her life at risk. He’s recently angered a powerful congressman by refusing to purchase overvalued land. Congressman Chambers is not a man to let such an offense slide, and he has the resources to get even and to get what he wants.

In Australia sparks are flying between Cordelia and Aiden, but multiple attempts on Aiden’s life are made while Cordelia is with him, and he realizes he must put a stop to the madness before he loses the thing he values most. 

My Thoughts: Having been a long time fan of Julie Garwood makes having to admit that her newer books (the ones written in the last 10 years or so) are just one disappointment after another. Although 3 stars isn't a horrible rating I know Garwood can do so much better. I think I'm just getting tired of her new heroines. They are seriously just too perfect. Most of them usually don't exercise yet are perfectly proportioned and thin. They are extremely beautiful yet don't feel that they are (this one drives me nuts). Most are extremely intelligent.

With this particular book even though the idea of Cordie was annoying (perfect women are tiresome to read about) I didn't completely hate her. I actually liked her. The roots that Garwood put down for her made her more humble to me and shortly into the book I actually felt an emotional connection to her. I did have one issue with her though, instead of admitting she wanted Aiden and going after him she chose to run away from her feelings and him. I think as far as characters go, the larger fault, for me, is actually in Aiden. Hot, intelligent, lawyer, millionaire hotelier...what isn't good about him? Well, I just didn't buy into his feelings for Cordie. Sure Garwood added hints on how his feelings were building but I really miss her old historic romance heroes. The ones that are so Alpha they practically beat their chests and grunt when they talk but their love for their woman can bring them to their knees. I miss that "If I lost you, I'd be nothing." moments in her books. This book didn't have any of those moments for me. As much as I really wanted to like Aiden he was either treating Cordie  like a princess by lavishing her with expensive clothing or being her domineering jailer (for her protection dontcha know) with nothing in between. There are names for men who do this. None of them are good and a therapist would recommend to steer clear of these men.

Here's where I got super annoyed....For a big part of the book Cordie was locked in a proverbial ivory tower. The men in her life took care of her and took care of  her trouble for her. Even though she struggled with the captivity the book felt as if Garwood was advertising that women cannot take care of their own trouble and have to rely on big strong men to protect them. This wasn't the only hint of sexism I picked up on. In several instances there were quite a few men wanting to talk to Aiden about business. No women. Most of the women mentioned were ones that wanted to have sex with Aiden. What? Women cannot be shrewd business people? Not in this book I guess.

So, while Cordie was being protected there was little suspense to be had. I wasn't too terribly worried that something would happen to her despite the direction Garwood took the storyline. The bad guy was a bit obvious and it made no sense as to why that person would sit on the information waiting for the shoe to drop for decades. It seems that particular person would have done something years earlier to eliminate the potential threat because of the way Garwood made their character.

One last thing that I struggled with.....Although Garwood's writing was, as usual, pleasant to read it didn't feel like a Garwood. There were so many sentences that began "she said" or "she went" or "she stopped". She. She. She. When it wasn't "she" it was "he". What happened to Garwood's polished prose? At this point I'm not sure if I just never noticed but now I am or she really has changed the way she writes. I'm not sure if I'm inclined to go back and read all of her Buchanan/Renard books again to double check either.

In a Nutshell: An Ok book that would have been better with a more impacting suspense plot, a better leading man and less 50's sexist ideals. But hey, it was a quick read and there are a couple interesting secondary characters that are worth mentioning (Walker and Liam).

Hotshot by Julie Garwood

Synopsis: Peyton Lockhart and her sisters have inherited Bishop’s Cove, a small, luxurious oceanfront resort, but it comes with a condition: The girls must run the resort for one year and show a profit—only then will they own it.
A graduate of a prestigious French culinary school, Peyton has just lost her job as a food critic. Out of work and in a bad place personally, a year doing something completely different sounds wonderful.
There are countless challenges and too many people who want to stop the sisters from succeeding. Among them are Peyton’s contentious cousins, who are outraged that they didn’t inherit the resort, as well as a powerful group of land developers who have been eyeing the coveted beachfront property.
It’s soon apparent to Peyton that their efforts are being sabotaged, but she refuses to let the threats scare her—until she’s nearly killed. She calls on her childhood friend and protector, Finn MacBain, now with the FBI, and asks for his help. He saved her life once; he can do it again.

My Thoughts: My big mistake in reading this book was starting it after finishing another truly amazing romantic suspense novel. Coming off of a seriously awesome sauce of a book and trying to read another book of the same ilk is setting it up for failure. Unfortunately I didn't think of that until after I finished reading Hotshot. I really tried to separate the two but I kept comparing them over and over again. I feel kind of bad about it too but it is what it is.

What Worked For Me: Typical of Julie's writing style this book contained witty dialogue and just plain fun banter between the characters. Finn and Peyton had great chemistry together and their first 'meeting' during the Prologue was pretty amazing. Some of the secondary characters were pretty interesting also. Ultimately the story ended up being set in Florida and I really enjoyed the resort descriptions while the girls where remodeling it.

What Didn't Work For Me: Several things, unfortunately. First of all, the story relies on the reader suspending their disbelief. A LOT. Peyton is being described as a stunningly beautiful, well traveled woman who even spent several months studying the culinary arts in France. Yet, she remained a virgin. It is unclear as to how old she really is but I would estimate her age to be around 24. The problem I have with romance books with a contemporary setting having the heroine a virgin is that it is not typical of this day and age unless there is some meaningful significance behind it. There was no significance to Peyton being a virgin other than a string of horrible dates with unfortunate men.

The reader also had to suspend their disbelief that one person could all of a sudden have multiple people out to get them. This seems to be a theme to Garwood's contemporary heroines and one I'm not thrilled with. The multiple 'bad guys' create multiple story lines which can muddle the book up a bit.

The characters themselves are interesting but Peyton flip flops between really intelligent, witty and wise to spontaneously jumping headfirst into situations without thought. Her sister Lucy is nothing more than a shrieking shrew and I wanted to shove her face first into wet cement just to shut her up. How any man could view her as potential mate material is beyond me.

In a Nutshell: Overall this book does have some problems but I did enjoy it. I have a long term love affair with Julie's work and in my eyes she can really do no wrong. I know that there seems to be a lot more issues than good points in my review. As a reviewer I feel obligated to acknowledge the issues in addition to explaining the good stuff. When I rate a book I tend to go by my gut feeling. Did I enjoy this book? Yes. Will I read it again? I just might. Will I read the next book by Julie that comes out? Definitely.

Oh and I can't end my review without mentioning one of my favorite quotes from the book (there are several because this is what Julie does best).

"You have to set a trap," Peyton told them.
Both men looked at her, and Finn asked, "What do you have in mind?"
"I don't know. That's your area of expertise. I'm a chef. If you catch him, I'll make you a soufflé."