Customer Reviews

Crazy Love (The Mission)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After having read Crazy Wild I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book, so much so that I pre-ordered it 5 months ago. I read this story in a day, it was pretty fast paced with all the things we've come to love in this series, hot weapons, hotter cars and the good guys saving the day, all while finding the time to meet up with your soulmate. It was entertaining but when I was done I still felt like there was something missing. The relationship that showed such promise in Crazy Wild seemed to loose a little something along the way. I don't know if it was the way that Travis & Red Dog's prequel seemed to dominate most of the second half or just the abrupt resolution to Dylan & Skeeter's relationship, it just felt like there could have been a few more chapters in there to flesh out their story a little more.

All of that aside, this installment of the 'Crazy' series is still worth the read, if for no other reason then to give keep filling in the blanks of the goings on for all the residents of Steele Street.

I reallly didn't understand the appeal of skeeter. She seemed more like a child than a lead in a romance novel but I was really looking forward to Dylan's story. I greatly anticipated this book and was greatly disappointed. I don't look forward to the next book either.

Secret Agent Dylan Hart works for the Special Defense Force, an ultra-secret agency that works out of a garage in Colorado. Stocked with muscle cars, enough weapons and munitions to take over a country, and high-tech gizmos that would make James Bond salivate, the SDF goes anywhere and does anything to preserve the United States' freedom. All his career, Dylan has weighed and measured his chances of succeeding at an assignment, shading his choices and emerging mostly unscathed. However, on his last mission he was infected with a virus NG4 (Next Generation 4) that's still in his system. Also in his system is a serious chemistry pull toward Skeeter Bang, also known affectionately as Baby Bang. She's twenty years old, and ready to rock and roll in the world of spies and counterspies, agents and double agents. And she's also ready to rock Dylan's world. Against Dylan's better judgment, he agrees to let Baby Bang go along on his latest assignment: to steal a file in Washington, DC that's going to put him in the cross hairs of an old and ruthless enemy.

Tara Janzen exploded onto the romance scene with her CRAZY books. CRAZY LOVE is the fifth in a six-book series about the SDF bad boys and the women who love them, but the novels don't have to be read in order to enjoy them.

The writing is absolutely great. Readers will be pulled along by the punchy action scenes and quick bursts of dialogue. Baby Bang's character is fully realized and played fairly with. She isn't a street urchin who becomes sophisticated along the way: she remains true to her roots. Dylan Hart also comes across as real, forced by an attraction so out of control that the normally very-much-in-control superspy is thrown into a tailspin. The other SDF agents are a welcome addition and move the story along nicely, giving a larger feel for the world that Janzen has created. This is one of those books readers can take to the beach this summer and while away an afternoon with, breathlessly turning pages filled with hot cars, blazing gun action and pulse-pounding romantic interludes.

The only drawback comes in the latter half of the book. Janzen uses her secondary characters efficiently in the first half of the novel, but they almost become intrusive in the second half. However, since those characters take center stage in the next novel, it works out well.

CRAZY LOVE is one of those quick-paced reads that fans of Gena Showalter and Nora Roberts will love. The characters are over-the-top, but real in a way that matters. Normal people wouldn't do the things SDF does, but it's nice to know that even supermen and superwomen struggle with attraction and love. The novel is a thrilling blast of suspense and action.

I've read and loved all the "Crazy..." books - up until this one, Crazy Love. I gotta say I was disappointed. Others before me have recapped the storyline so I won't bother with that. I'll tell you it was a good book with an interesting story and great characters. We were finally going to get into the head of Skeeter Bang and Dylan Hart - NOT! The book came to such an abrupt, thrown-together ending that it was like it was written by someone else. It seemed like there was an entire chapter missing. Seriously, I looked back when I finished the book to see if there was a printing error and they left out a chapter. There was so much untapped potential here that I wish the author would do a re-write and fix it. The characters deserved more than what they got. The ending was such a disappointing, half-done, slapped together, finish that it reflected badly on the entire book which, until the last 3 chapters, had been a very good book. I felt short changed. To the point that I'm not even looking forward to the final novel "Crazy Sweet". Oh well, I'll definitely keep the other four in the series on my "keeper" shelf....

I loved Tra Janzen's previous books. I thought they werethought out intense and mesmerizing. But this book is only getting three stars because I liked her previous books. There were hardly any scenes with Dylan and Skeeter and from Crazy Sweet Iwas expecting and awesome book. That had so much chemistry. Even the beginning of the book (first chapter) was a good develop of their chemistry.

But after that I felt that it fell flat. The book seemed more about Travis and Red Dog than Dylan and Skeeter.

I was pretty dissapointed, especially because I had been anticipating this book for months.

The mission story was good, the sizzle you kept anticipating between Dylan and Skeeter kept being put off while he tried to keep her tucked away in the safety zone. Disapointed that there wasn't much play between the two of them. I love all the characters in this series and hope that the last book delivers the anticipated relationship that was missing this time around. I would recommend reading this book so that you have a chance to know more about Travis and his upcoming story.

This book wasn't what I was expecting. This was my first book by Tara Janzen. I had heard about her rogue unit of chop shop boys but never had tried one. I'm not going to write a plot summary since Amazon and other reviewers have supplied that already. I guess I should have started from the beginning of the series instead of on book five. My advice is start from the beginning because I'm hoping it will lead up to this book. I felt the two main characters weren't really established with me and I didn't feel their heat. I was a little confused about the mission and wanted more explanation and detail. I felt that Ms. Janzen rushed things along too much with the mission and both couples. I'm going to give her another chance but was just disappointed after everything I had heard about this series.

I'm shocked! Really shocked! This was Skeeter Bang and Dylan Hart's book. The one that should've been the "best of the greatest series ever" and it just fell flat on it's face. Disappointed couldn't begin to explain how I feel.

This book has all the incredible action of the previous books. Great, compelling, interesting, addicting action. The action piece wasn't the problem. This book also had the great secondary romance plot line that the rest of the books had. The secondary romance between Red Dog and Travis was not the problem. It was intense and interesting and I'm excited to read about them next. This book also had the scorching chemistry between the two leads...the chemistry was definitely not the problem.

Sadly though, this book definitely had a problem. In the other books there was action, other characters, and they all still had enough space and time to do the two leads justice...(ie. give them enough scenes together...talking, kissing, wanting, thinking, kissing, kissing, kissing. This book was either just to short, or just had to much other stuff that it missed the most important part of a romance book for me....couple development. This book had none....talk about a quickie...there was basically a drug induced guy, a kick butt girl, a one-night stand, months apart, and then a diamond ring. Yep...that's it. I covered it all in one sentence. How utterly disappointing for one of the coolest and most anticipated couples that I've ever hoped to read about. Bummer.

When I started this series with "Crazy Hot," I thought I struck gold. I thought, Oh yes, another author to add to my "must buy" collection. Both Crazy Hot and Crazy Cool did not disappoint.

The disappointment started with Crazy Wild. For some reason, I just wasn't "wild" about it. I don't know, the characters seemed kind of repetitive, the men were the same, I just couldn't figure it out. But I could not stop with Crazy Wild. I mean, Crazy Hot set up the premise for Crazy Kisses, so I had to read, Niki & Kid Chaos's story. But...while Crazy Kisses was good, it was still somewhat of a letdown. And the secondary storyline between Travis and Robin was kind of pathetic. What's up with this gorgeous guy falling for such "loser type" girls anyway?

Still, I gave Dylan and Skeeter, "Baby Bang" a try. Oh my goodness...what a MAJOR disappointment. Their romance was - okay, there was no romance. There was some mutual lust on both their sides, a one night stand, and then nothing. And I mean nothing. No buildup, no romance, nothing. And Dylan still remains a mystery. I mean, how old was this guy anyway? The book never stated his age.

As an outsider looking in, I can't imagine their relationship lasting more than a few months. Okay, a few weeks. I mean what else do they have to build on besides mutual lust? They have absolutely nothing in common. My final thoughts to newcomers like myself - take a pass on this story. And perhaps...the rest of the series. I certainly have no intention of reading Travis and Red Dog's story. Ugh!

Just how old is Dylan? That question is not answered in the book and not knowing the answer kept me from enjoying the story fully. Because I'm not really interested in 'dirty old man lusts after young girl' romances. The novel is about number 4 in a series but I'm not sufficiently motivated to buy all the previous ones.

Having said that. Crazy Love still has a lot going for it. Like verve, panache, chutzpah and happiness. The story is set in DC and Denver...in some kind of parallel universe where the SecDef is a 100% good guy and any behaviour by special forces is acceptable so long as they are protecting America's interests. There is a jaw-dropping passage in the book which I will quote;

"...a successful mission in Afghanistan that had netted the US a long sought-after terrorist leader. No-one was naming names. Word had yet to leak out that the terrorist leader was even missing, let alone that he was sitting in a cell in Guantanamo Bay." Hur, hur. As if.

Yet I know this story is fairly typical of a genre. Aimed entirely at women. Where the whole world's problems will be solved by US Special Forces.

Also typically. The mission, no matter how important, can go hang while the main characters sort out their various sex lives. I thought it fairly creepy how Dylan groped poor Skeeter inside the vault. He has to be drugged up to the eyeballs before he can express his emotions to her. Eww.

I loved some of the imagery in the novel. The chop shop scenes. The pink butterflies and leeches. The nasty Indonesians. It was such a shame that they had to be despatched off-story. I expect Royce will live to bring more misery to SDF. Like a lot of these so-so novels the big scene happens in the middle of the story and things just fizzle out from then on. I liked Skeeter. I liked the Hawkins family. And the novel is told from the pov of just about all the gazillion characters. The sex scenes are quite anaemic but most of the killing and torture scenes were also lightweight.

The momentum was somewhat spoiled by the Travis and Gillian sub-plot. To which there was no point other than the set-up for a later novel. I did not like Gillian at all. If she was so super-brainy why didn't she publish her theories without her husband? The author painted such a negative picture of Gillian. Yet another stupid loser grateful for sex with a younger good-looking guy which she uses as a strategy to cope with low self-esteem.

Also. The cover is embarassing.

Apart from my minor dissatisfactions. A good enjoyable read.