Blind Curve by Annie Solomon

Annie Solomon joins the short list of most exciting new author I have read in a while. Pamela Clare was the other one. Blind Curve is a romantic suspense that kept me glued to the story from start to end. There was definitely no pause, no slow spot, and no lag. This one was up there with the likes of Linda Howard and Suzanne Brockmann.

Danny Sinofsky is working a gun trade as an undercover cop but when he arrives at the warehouse something goes very wrong. The guy selling the gun ends up dead and Danny ends up blind. Seems like Danny suffered a stroke after being hit in the head a few days before and the outcome is complete blindness.

Martha Crowe is a mobility instructor and when Danny loses his sight, she is called to help him cope with his new blindness. But someone is out to kill Danny and having failed at the location of his undercover sting they come to his house to finish the job, expecting him to be defenseless. Danny might be blind but Martha isn't and when she walks in on the attempt to Danny's life, she becomes a witness. Great premise, huh? Well it gets better!

Danny and Martha are placed into protective custody but there is not much to protect if someone on the team informs their enemy of their location. Now Danny and Martha are on a race against time, trying to keep in front of the assassins while trying to find out who is the traitor in the department. The race takes them from making deals with a Mob boss to getting the FBI involved.

The narratives in this book keeps you on the edge and just turning the page to find out how these two will pull themselves out of the mess they're in. I had an issue with Danny and Martha's relationship. Martha is an ugly duckling and Danny is the beautiful Jock she just dreamed about when she was in high school. At times it felt as if Danny was just using her. I could not find credible that his feelings for her were actually real and not a response to her being the link between him and the seeing world. As soon as he became blind, Martha was his only real contact to the world he once knew, so I saw their romance more of a refuge from a traumatic experience, like those victims that fall in love with their heroes. The author handled this very nicely in the end, wrapping things up in a way that told me that there was more to this relationship than a certain dependency on both their parts.

Another issue that I found difficult to believe was how he became blind one afternoon and the hospital sent him home just a few hours later? Can't swallow that one! Regardless of these quirks, the book was so engrossing, I could forgive these issues.

Grade: A-