Genres: Romantic Suspense

Judith’s review of When You Dare by Lori Foster.

The tougher they are, the harder they fall…

Professional mercenary Dare Macintosh lives by one hard and fast rule: business should never be personal. If a cause appeals to him and the price is right, he’ll take the mission he’s offered. But then the lovely Molly Alexander asks him to help her track down the men who’d had her kidnapped—and for the first time, Dare’s tempted to combine work with pleasure.


Fiercely independent, Molly vows to trust no one until she’s uncovered the truth. Could the enemy be her powerful, estranged father? The ex-fiancé who still holds a grudge? Or the not-so-shy fan of her bestselling novels? As the danger heats up around them, the only anchor Molly has is Dare himself. But what she feels for him just might be the most frightening thing of all.

As a reviewer I have the privilege of reading lots of books with plots that take in everything from classic histsoricals to far-out futuristic fantasies and paranormals. Still one of my favorite combinations is, however, the rich and steamy romance paired with a suspense mystery. This particular novel certainly fills the bill on that score. Having read the prequel in the anthology The Guy Next Door which told the story of the love affair between Natalie Alexander and her neighbor Jett, a private investigator who was formerly with the FBI, I was anxious to read this novel about Natalie’s sister Molly. That it was not going to be a comfortable read became evident early on.

From the get go, it is obvious that the tension level in this book is going to be fairly high. Molly was an “accidental” rescue–Dare MacIntosh was hired to find the sister of one of his colleagues and best friends who had been kidnapped and, as it turns out, was being prepared to be sold on the world “white slave” market. Molly was being kept prisoner in the same location and Dare, having noticed her, couldn’t leave her behind. It was also obvious to him that she was being held for a totally different purpose since women being sold were seldom if ever tortured in any way that would leave physical marks–that would decease their value. Molly was being beaten, starved, drugged, humiliated, and was slowly weakening, possibly facing her own death in a matter of days. It is also evident from the get go, that Dare is a true Alpha male–no way would he allow any woman to be so mistreated. Whether or not she was his prime object of concern, all his protective instinct were aroused by her plight and he brought her out of that dark place.

This is a complicated novel about very complicated people. Dare was one of those guys that had been trained by the military for a kind of Special Ops assignment–personal protection for important governmental figures and their families–and had continued to hone his skills and his network of useful contacts in succeeding years. He was a lone wolf of sorts, allowing only his personal assistant and his two “girls” — his twin labradors–to be family to him. He had his best friends, but he was happy with his life. Occasionally a situation arose that piqued his interest, but he was wealthy and no longer took cases for financial reasons. He would have never found Molly if it weren’t for his efforts to find the sister of one of his best friends. He wasn’t prepared for the way Molly’s inner spirit, her strength of character, her down-to-earth acceptance of life’s realities, her insightful intelligence, etc. that got under the personal defenses he had built around his emotions. That the people who orchestrated her kidnapping were still “out there” also engaged his protective urges and he found that he could not distance himself from her, even after she had begun to recover from her ordeal.

Molly was a complicated woman: a published author who understood her occupation and the business issues associated with it. She accepted the ire of disgruntled readers, was happy to use her skill to write stories that satisfied something within herself and entertained her readers, but she was also willing to be an independant, self-motivated, caring woman who understood that she was responsible for her own life. That Dare wanted to protect her was fine, but she wanted to be a part of the process of finding those who had been responsible for her kidnapping. Even when she was at her worst–right after being rescued–she had a sense of self-dignity that kept her from falling apart, that testified to her comfort with who she was intrinsically.

Throw in the background characters of Dare’s personal assistant–a man who really was like a brother to him–., Molly’s self-centered and self-absorbed father and step-mother, and you have a cast of characters that is varied, colorful, certainly not boring, and which kept tension in the story consistently high. Add in the fact that there were additional attacks on Molly’s safety, and this novel became, at least for me, a very compelling read. It was also fascinating to watch Dare’s inner defenses slowly crumble as Molly’s very direct, openly honest approach to the entire situation kept surprising him. This woman was no “weeping Wilda” and add to that, she was downright sexy–a quality which was probably the only aspect about herself she didn’t take seriously. That she was reasonably attractive she admitted. Sexy? Not even. She had a fiance who was obviously after her financial assets but she jetisoned him without too much heartache. And throughout this novel it was also fascinating to watch Molly’s emergence as a strong, witty, sensitive, caring woman who was finding a way to integrate what had happened to her without be conquered by it.

I liked this novel so much. It was tension-filled in relation to the mystery surrounding Molly’s kidnapping. But the growing sexual tension between Dare and Molly was also a part of what made this novel compelling. For all his “take charge” way of thinking and doing, I liked that Dare was so sensitive to acting appropriately toward Molly, in spite of the intensity of his attraction for her. I think he was a genuinely neat guy, but one with a past one would not necessarily want to know too much about.

This novel is also a fictional reminder that in real life and in our real world the kidnapping and sale of women world-wide is a lucrative business that is well-established and flourishing. Women worry about being attacked in subway stations or on dark streets or in apartment building entrances, but we seldom think about being abducted and sold into a life of slavery that usually means an early death and life-long degradation. We would do well to recognize that there are far more enemies to our safety “out there” than we often acknowledge. Foster’s novel and a number of other recent writings are there to remind all of us to be careful and to take our personal safety far more seriously than is sometimes the case.

So Lori Foster fans, this is a very good addition to her literary portfolio, and for those who like romance mixed in with mystery, a fun heroine who works hard at finding the best in herself and others, and a hero who is an “Oh My” kind of guy, this is your kind of book.

I give it a rating of 4.5 out of 5.

The Series:

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

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