Friday, April 14, 2006

Taylor's Temptation by Suzanne Brockmann



I must say the Tall, Dark and Dangerous series is the best series I have read in a long time and will definitely be on my favorite reads for this year. This is next to last book of the series with Night Watch being the last one. From the whole series I have not read Forever Blue (which I have in ebook format and might read later), The Admiral's Bride (which was reissued this month) and Identity Unknown (which is no where to be found). Honestly, I will not be looking for these last two books since we really don't get very attached to these heroes.

In the Admiral's Bride we read Jake Robinson's story. Jake was the Admiral that Crash was accused of killing (obviously he was not dead) in Hawken's Heart. He had lost the love of his life in that book and, honestly, I just can not picture him loving Daisy for so long and then marrying someone else. I want to live with the illusion that he could never love another like Daisy.

In Identity Unknown, we read Mitch Shaw's story. Who's Mitch Shaw, is my question. If he was mentioned in any other book, except in passing, I missed it. So, I could care less if he finds love. :)

I will eventually read Forever Blue because I really loved Lucy in Get Lucky.

Now, onto Taylor's Temptation. Bobby Taylor goes off to Boston as a favor to Wes (his Swim Buddy and best friend), his mission is to stop Colleen, Wes' baby sister, from participating in a earthquake disaster relief that is headed to a terrorist country. This is a big favor to ask Bobby because since Colleen was 19 Bobby has been attracted to her. He has done his best to stay far, far away from her but when Wes pleads for him to intervene, he cannot a good excuse to deny him.

At 23 Colleen is ten years younger than Bobby but she has had a crush on him since meeting him at 13. When he shows up without her brother in tow she sees it as the perfect opportunity to seduce him. And when she discovers that Bobby actually wants her, she becomes as relentless as ever. Maybe a bit too relentless.

I liked the book but in truth this one was my least favorite. I really loved the scene where Bobby is in his hotel room struggling with his feelings and he says them out loud while Wes is trying to bang the door down. It was so heart wrenching. After that, I had a hard time liking Colleen. I can understand her 'in your face' attitude but she was just too mercenary in her attempt to seduce Bobby and she knew he was struggling with his loyalties to his best friend.

Bobby was what got the grade for me because I didn't care for Colleen much. I also found that the book was too censored. I think Brockmann should have put the explicit language she referred to and not censor it out. It felt a bit incomplete because of this.

Oh, by the way, this was the best cover I have seen in the series! Awesome!

Grade: B

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't think Mitch Shaw appears until maybe Admiral's Bride. Stuff that happens in AB is sort of relevant to his book. His is one that you can lift out of the series without really missing it. I believe that Brockmann wrote/said once that she envisioned that series as being composed of sets of trilogies. Admiral's Bride, Hawken's Heart and Identity: Unknown make up a single subset; Prince Joe, Forever Blue and Frisco's Kid another subset, etc. You can probably lift AB, HH and IU of the larger series without messing with the continuity.

Last time I checked Brockmann's website (quite some time ago), the tentative plan was to release one more set of trilogies, which was supposed to include newbie SEALs and guys who had only been mentioned before, never on stage, so to speak. I don't know if that's still going to happen now that she's shifted to hardback.

 
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