Guest Review: Opposing Forces by Adrienne Giordano

Posted February 2, 2013 by Judith in Reviews | 0 Comments

Genres: Romantic Suspense

17983311Judith’s review of Opposing Forces (Private Protectors #6)  by Adrienne Giordano

Jackson Lynx always has a plan. He wouldn’t be Vice President at Taylor Security if he wasn’t steady, smart and reliable. But as capable as he is, he’s not perfect. Approaching the one-year anniversary of kicking his prescription-drug habit, the last thing Lynx needs is temptation. Celibacy is part of his recovery plan. But then Jillian Murdoch asks for his help…

Jillian loves her job—managing pharmaceutical distribution—and she’s suspicious when an unscheduled delivery shows up late on a Friday night. Then someone breaks into her home and, terrified, she asks Lynx to install a security system. Grateful for his help, she’s wary of her attraction to him… She recognizes the Serenity Prayer on his mirror and can’t get involved with an addict.  But when they uncover dangerous secrets they’ll have to trust one another. Their lives, and their hearts, depend on it.

Several decades ago I would not have really understood, much less appreciated the hero in this story, a man who has owned up to his addiction and is coming up on his first anniversary of sobriety.  Addiction treatment just wasn’t a part of my early experience.  People were drunks and druggies, and they either stopped drinking or taking drugs or they didn’t.  There was little talk about addiction as a disease of mind as well as body.  Yet in this story readers are given in in-depth look into the life of a very successful man who has been crippled in his professional and personal life by addiction.  He is proud of his achievement, is faithful in attending his 12-step meetings, and has made celibacy a part of his program–denying himself and disciplining himself even in areas of his life that seemingly played no part in the progress of his addiction disease.

Of course there is always the femme fatale present in a story of a man who has sworn off sex.  Jillian is a mighty temptation, no only because she is beautiful and sexy, but she is also needy and it seems that dominant men are drawn to  women who really need their protection and caring.  It’s probably one of the reasons our hero finds himself involved professionally with a security firm.  I think there will always be people who need those who have a need to protect and serve.  This is a story that contains a rather complicated mystery revolving around the possible sale and distribution of illegal drugs or pharmaceuticals by a firm with which Jillian is associated.  She hasn’t been there long, but she has a fine reputation  within her field and she has an important position within the company that means she should have been aware of all the shipments coming in and going out of the company’s warehouses.  Such was not the case and it is this that has awakened her suspicions and finally caused her to feel vulnerable and unsafe.  Thus she enters  Jackson Lynx’s world and while she may be in danger from those protecting big secrets and huge piles of money, Jillian is a life-threatening source of worry to Jackson and his hard-won sobriety.

This is another wonderful story in a series that has hooked many of us with good writing, gritty characters who lack even the barest hint of social polish, love that would scorch anyone’s ceiling (if you’re reading them in bed) and a mystery that has readers scratching heads as the story progresses with twists and turns that are wholly unexpected.  Along with everything else, Jillian knows about Jackson’s vow to himself, that achieving that all-important anniversary is far more critical than she realizes, yet she can’t help the fact that she has gotten under his skin and he doesn’t quite know what to do about it.  The sexual tension is relentless.  Suffice it to say that this is another in a series that has never disappointed, that has never let readers down, and that has all of us hoping that there will be additions to the series for a long time to come.

This is a fantastic read and I am delighted to have been privileged to read and review it.

I give it a rating of 4.25 out of 5.

You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place

 

This book is available from Carina Press.  You can buy it here or here in e-format.


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