Rowena’s review of Tempted by his Target by Jill Sorenson.
Hero: Brandon Knox
Heroine: Isabel Sanborn
Wanted for the murder of a Mexican drug lord’s son, party girl Isabel Sanborn fled to Oaxaca. Now she owes her life to Brandon Knox, a passing tourist who just saved her from a hit man.
But Knox is no accidental hero—he’s an undercover U.S. marshal assigned to bring Isabel to justice. Instead, wanting to protect her, he joins her on the lam…with cartel goons and corrupt police in hot pursuit!
And as the danger escalates, sexual tension sizzles. For the first time in his career, Brandon considers jeopardizing his mission to safeguard his target. And though Isabel can elude the authorities,she can’t escape her feelings….
This is one of those books that doesn’t take much time at all to dig right in. I like to read these short stories from time to time when I’m not ready to dig right into another book. I’m starting to notice that there are a lot of “big secret” plots going on in the books that I’m reading. In this book, Brandon Knox goes undercover to bring Isabel Sanborn in as she’s wanted for the murder of the Mexican cartel leader’s son, Jaime Carranza.
Isabel took off running when she woke to find Jaime Carranza dead and she holds herself responsible for his death even though of course, she didn’t do it. Brandon tracks her down to Mexico and tries to win her trust in order to get her to turn herself in. Of course, he does all of this without telling her exactly who he is and who he works for and when the shit hits the fan, you know good and well that Isabel is going to be pissed.
This book is mostly spent tracking both Brandon and Isabel as they’re on the run from the guys that Carranza hired to kill Isabel. Brandon gets caught up in the mix and Isabel lets him in. She’s been on the run for a while now and she’s lonely and misses having friends and family to talk to. She hasn’t talked to anyone since she’s gone into hiding and you could tell by how un-trusting she was toward Brandon in the beginning that her life was getting to her.
For such a short story, the book didn’t lack in action. Brandon and Isabel grow close quickly and though it should have been unbelievable because of Isabel’s nature and distrust of everyone. She was a loner by choice but when Brandon comes into the picture, she lets him in without too much of a fight. I thought Jill did a great job of writing their story to where I didn’t question it too much and was okay with it all.
Brandon is one of those heroes that is sexy and strong and you want to bang him ten ways from Sunday. He’s got the protective bone that I can’t help but love and the way that he fell in love with Isabel was cute. He wasn’t expecting it but once he realizes he does, it’s true and he doesn’t try to talk himself out of it. I enjoyed getting to know him, even though at first I couldn’t figure out what his deal was. I didn’t remember who he worked for and what he wanted with Isabel in the first place since it wasn’t brought up.
Isabel was a likeable heroine. She is closed off from the world because it’s necessary and you sympathized with her because once she opened up about herself to Brandon, she didn’t hide who she was. You could tell that she came a long way from the person she used to be and you could tell that she had regrets and learned from her mistakes.
Overall, this story was enjoyable. I liked getting to know both Brandon and Isabel but the one downside for me was the ending was a bit of a let down. It all wrapped up too quickly and I closed the book thinking that something else should have happened before it ended. The easy way that the problems all wrapped up (with Carranza, etc..) at the end left me a bit disappointed but all in all, the story was still enjoyable.
Grade: 3.5 out of 5
This book is available from Harlequin. You can buy it here or here in e-format.
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