One streetwise undercover agent will do whatever it takes to catch her man….
In this heart-stopping novel, Jill Sorenson delivers a romantic thriller featuring one too-tough female agent, one too-hot male suspect, and a head-on erotic collision…. CRASH INTO MEBen Fortune may have gone into virtual seclusion after his wife’s murder, but he was still the world’s most famous surfer, known as much for his good looks as for his skill on the board. He’s also a suspect in a series of brutal murders. FBI Special Agent Sonora “Sonny” Vasquez has been sent undercover to the elite beach community of La Jolla to make friends with Fortune. With her fierce beauty and take-no-prisoners attitude, she’s more than equipped for the job. But all too soon she and Ben have collided in an affair that is both intense and irresistible. Could this sensual, wounded man really be a killer? And could falling in love blind Sonny to the greatest danger of all?
I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. I thought it would be one of those books that you could put down and would take at least 3 days to finish. I finished it in a day. I couldn’t put it down, it was that good. I can’t particularly even tell you what was so great about it. I think it was just the book as a whole. I’m not a huge fan of this type of storyline. You know the one…cop goes in undercover to bring down bad guy.
Sonny Vasquez (I did have a problem with that name b/c I kept thinking of Sonny from General Hospital) is the perfect person to go undercover in La Jolla to prove that Ben Fortune is a serial killer. When dead women start turning up on the beach where Ben lives, killed in the exact same way his wife was killed, the police start looking more closely at the famous surfer. Sonny has no problem staying detached from her cases and she is from the area. For all her supposedly readiness to prove Ben’s guilt, it doesn’t take her long at all to realize that he’s not guilty of anything.
What she was nowhere near ready for was her attraction to Ben. Sonny stays away from men. Period. After a horrific childhood rape, Sonny has a healthy fear of getting involved. Ben somehow gets passed defenses she’s had in place for years. It’s Sonny’s bad luck that the first man she’s ever had feelings for doesn’t know who she really is.
Ben hasn’t gotten involved with anyone since his wife was murdered. Being famous from a young age didn’t do good things for Ben or his family. It wasn’t until he realized how he was hurting the woman he loved and their daughter that he was able to pull it together and be the man that they needed him to be. When his wife was murdered, Ben and his daughter, Carly, are both lost. Meeting Summer (Sonny) is something that he doesn’t expect nor does he particularly want it. But he can’t stay away from her.
One of the best things about this book was how real the characters were. Carly is a sixteen year old with real sixteen year old problems. Ben is a dad that is trying to find the balance between parental tyranny and parental friendship. He doesn’t want to give Carly too much space, but he doesn’t want to smother her so much that she goes and does something awful. It really was believable and I thought that Sorenson did a great job with the father/daughter relationship.
Even though I knew who did it (yes, I actually figured it out), almost from the beginning, it didn’t take away from the story. I even figured out the why. It was the family stuff that was happening on the side that really made this book as good as it was. The family dynamics here were dynamite. First you have Ben and Carly, then you have Sonny and the family she didn’t realize she had. And in a twist of fate, their two families are connected. It made for great reading.
4.5 out of 5.
This book is available from Bantam. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
I’ve been wondering about this one. Sounds good! Going to add it to my booklist. Thanks for the review!
I remember hearing about this one, and thinking it sounded really good. Thanks for the review.
This book sounds really interesting and intruiging at the same time. Good review on Amazon too. Definitely buying this one.
I really enjoyed this book. I, too, knew who it was from the very beginning, but that didn’t bother me either as you’re right– I was fascinated by the relationship between Carly and Ben and Ben and Sonny.