Crazy Cool [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the first time I’ve read anything penned by Ms. Janzen and it won’t be the last. She has penned a sexy contemporary that will leave the reader looking for her backlist.

Katya Dekker is trying to get her Denver art gallery off to a grand start. She plans to do this through an art auction…but then she catches the sight of someone from her past and she is set back thirteen years to the one man she wished she had had the courage to hold on to. Christian Hawkins.

Thirteen years earlier Christian played the rescuer to Kat damsel in distress. This of course leads to a month that neither of them is going to be able to forget…and Christian is going to go to jail for a murder he did not commit. Now years later he has been called to protect the one woman that has ever touched his heart. Will he be able to stay detached or will the chemistry that burned between them catch them unaware? They will have to figure this out while trying to stay one step ahead of blackmailer who wants Christian out of the picture for good.

This is a very complex book. Ms. Janzen has laid the groundwork for future stories while still penning a hot and engaging story. Christian is yummy and a total Alpha male that is a wonderful character and Kat is his match. I can’t wait for the next in the series and highly recommend Ms. Janzen.

I enjoyed reading this novel. The romance plot is very sensuous at times.

But the murder plot is just too complicated and internecine for me to get my head round. And the way Marilyn Dekker turns out to be a loving mother who is forgiven all her sins against her daughter was just too ridiculous for words as well as being a complete injustice.

As far as I can figure. The catalyst for all the up-to-date events was Katya's decision to buy an art gallery in her home town of Denver. That stirred up the latent hatred of Big Jon Traynor. But why did he (or Marilyn Dekker or Albert Thorpe) choose to involve Hawkins again? Just didn't make sense. So the motivations of the bad guys are too sketchily drawn to understand. The scenes that involved the bad guys talking conveyed more their incompetence rather than their ability to control events.

And why on earth does Katya defend the characters of the gang who tried to rape her to Hawkins? A gang is a gang is a gang. Taken individually, I'm sure most of them were `nice boys' but the whole point of a gang is that it allows the nasty part of a person's character to reign. imo. I'm not speaking from any personal experience.

There are a lot of romance scenes in this book. Some readers might get tired of them all because essentially many of then don't do anything for the plot. But I enjoyed them. I enjoyed the memories the main couple have of their first fling together and I liked all the current scenes. Particularly the `sex in the car' scenes...and the `drunk on one margherita' scene. I even liked the `bathroom transformation' scenes.'

I didn't mind too much the fact that the heroine really did let an innocent man go to jail for a crime that he did not commit. In fact I thought the heroine was a lovely character. She even admits she could live in Hawkins's loft long before she admits she is in love with him. That's just like Pride and Prejudice. However. She's also deeply flawed in that it was obvious that she could be (passively) assertive, even with her mother, when she wanted to be. But I'll be generous and consider that is a skill that came with age and success.

Also. Although Katya apologises to Hawkins (13 years after the event), I didn't really get the impression that she had ever been exactly eaten up with guilt. Still. Being locked up and drugged up in an insane asylum can't be very nice for anyone, especially a young woman. So as a reader, I accommodated her less pleasant characteristics.

For me, the romance between the main couple sometimes became so intense that I was actually quite glad for the secondary couple's inclusion. I loved being inside Hawkins' head as he works through his memories and feelings for Katya. Being inside Katya's head was totally different. Because she tended to avoid some memories. Which was understandable really. Seeing how she herself said she used to be somewhat cowardly. A heroine who hyper-ventilates in stressful situations. Hmm. It totally worked for me.

I think this series is excellent. Strangely, many important events take place off-story. Apparently about 6 novels were written in under 2 years. I totally appreciate authors who `churn' out books. It's a dying skill. But many romance authors used to do it years ago.

Do I believe in the HEA? Probably. Mainly because Katya does not have to give up anything by becoming Mrs Christian Hawkins. And she likes his home. But whether messy and tidy can exist together forever. Now that's a poser.

Truely appalling, historically sexist cover though. Why?