Customer Reviews

To the Edge

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Growing up, Jillian Kincaid had an ever present shadow--a body guard. Her father, a high profile publishing mogul, feared someone would try to harm his baby girl. For years Jillian felt like a captive, and now that she's grown, she fights to maintain her freedom. When she starts receiving threatening phone calls at the television station where she's an anchorwoman and at home, her father hires bodyguard Nolan Garret to protect his baby. Jillian doesn't want the incredibly sexy Nolan invading her space or filling her mind with lust filled dreams, but she's scared.

Former Army Ranger Nolan Garret had only been home from the armed forces for three months when his brother came to him asking a favor. Some "princess" needed protecting, and her father only wanted the best; grudgingly, Nolan agreed to help. Demons from his days as a Ranger haunt his dreams and soon the dreams include Jillian. Nolan has already lost too many who were close to him, thus creates a mental image of Jillian being a weak, spoiled-rotten, self-centered, daddy's girl. Self-assured, compassionate, hardworking Jillian soon shatters that image and Nolan finds himself falling for her.

Just when I was afraid TO THE EDGE would hit a sagging middle, Cindy Gerard threw in a twist I hadn't expected and revved up the speed. Toward the end when I was in the swing of things, thinking the novel would wind down, Ms. Gerard threw in another twist that hyped me up again. Watching Jillian and Nolan fight their attraction for each other while they searched for the identity of the stalker was sexual tension at the highest. And when they finally got together, well... read the book.

Reviewed by Deatri King-Bey

of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Ms. Gerard has started her "Bodyguards" series with a fine story that will keep the reader firmly engaged. This is truly a fine read but readers should be aware that although this is billed as a "romantic suspense" the romance is slowly built, but whoooee is the chemistry between Nolan and Jillian hot. As a result romance readers may feel a bit cheated. This is truly a complex story and one that should be picked up.

Jillian Kincaid is a rich girl who has made it on her own merits as a newscaster. She is also being stalked by someone that wants her dead. Her father a well known publisher decides to take matters into his own hands and hires a bodyguard to keep Jillian safe. Enter ex-Ranger Nolan Garrett.

Nolan Garrett is strong, tough, and haunted. He feels that he has let down too many people over the course of his military career and is dumbfounded when his brother comes to him requesting his help with a case. since family is important Nolan takes the case. What he expects Jillian to be is totally not what she is. She's strong, gusty, and scared to death. She also speaks to the wounded man that he is. Will he be able to keep her safe from not only himself but the stalker?

Again, this was a fast paced read that will enthrall readers from the get go. Ms. Gerard has created a rather nasty evil person that drives the story with little effort. This is one series that I'm looking forward to reading.

I read this book (the 1st in the Bodyguards series) AFTER the 2nd book in the series. I have to say, I really love them both... and actually like this one better. This was a great suspense story involving a high-society news reporter name Jillian, a mysterious stalker, and (what else?) a BODYGUARD named Nolan. Nolan is a great character... with a gorgeous body, a bit of baggage from being in the Army Rangers, and a wonderful heart. I loved watching the animosity between Nolan and Jillian turn into sensual tension and then, of course, love. And, of course, this lug-head Nolan fights it as he feels he is not good enough for her. THIS BOOK IS A REAL PAGE TURNER!!

I also appreciate how Cindy Gerard creates a set of intriguing siblings who we can then follow into the other books in this series. The sibs, whose names start with the letters E, D, E, N (Ethan, Dallas, Eve, and Nolan) are part of a very loving family, but each is very different from the others. I can't wait to read more in this series!!

CG came highly recommended. I'm having a hard time figuring out why.

The hero Nolan starts out not coping with life, has one impressive fight but is otherwise incompetent at his job, erratically mean to the heroine, and TSTL. Because it's all about him, he goes back to his same lack of coping by getting drunk for days when he could be out being useful to his friends, family or object of affection. But no. Here's a hint: It's ok to start out a hero as a morose drunk only if he grows up, grows a pair, and gets over it by the end. I was left feeling sure that he would revert at the next minor crisis, which is not what I want for my heroine.

The heroine Jillian is pretty likeable actually: friendly, hardworking, focuses on the positives, and uses her rising tide to lift all boats rather than crush them in her wake. That said, while she has fewer TSTL moments than the hero she still has too many and a distressing tendency to believe what her intuition tells her rather than what Nolan's semi-abusive actions tell her. I wasn't convinced there was anything going on but her talking herself into loving the only semi-available guy in close proximity. That, and how can an award winning investigative journalist not be able to find someone at their _last_known_address_ after a week of searching?

The antagonist was a total let down. Not only didn't that character make sense to me, but I didn't care if it was that character. It didn't lead to anything useful but a brief moment where the heroine recovered some pride in her distant mother. This moment was insufficient justification for the bizzare and boring choice.

Plotwise... shortly before we find out whodunit, I switched to only reading for the train wreck factor because I couldn't take the wrongness of the actions anymore. I know more about bodyguarding from watching the secret service on TV than this guy seems to. And shortly after the train wreck plot, there's a train. What??? I don't think the author has ever seen a train move before or she would know that if a giant freight train was reversing direction - something it would never do outside a station except in an emergency - it would take so long and go so slowly a parade could walk between the cars to the other side. There would be no need to carefully time anything, especially if one were in good shape and motivated to get to the other side.

The romance. Was there one? There was a fun dance scene. There was one fun overnight. There were a few steamy glances. And Nolan turned on Jillian at the immediate conclusion of every single event, going distant and unreachable "for her own good" and visibly and knowingly hurting her more in the process. After a while, his about face was not only predictable but tiring. He saw that things went south and did the same wrong thing time after time. He never tried talking about his reasons, or working things through with her, or any minor variation. While we as readers "know" he means well and and we know that Jillian "accurately sees him for who he is inside" from very few clues, if I were watching it as a movie, I'd scream at her to get away from the abusive freak. The development was almost all in their heads, not in their communication, and the introspection didn't sell it to me. They remained "strangers with chemistry" to the end with only the one big night followed by enough disappointing behavior to poison it.

To sum up: started off with potential, didn't live up to it.

The prose is mostly fine as is a lot of the dialogue and the initial characterization, hence two stars instead of one. I did not see any character growth. TSTL Martyr-hero has bad coping skills and no bodyguarding skills to speak of which is bad when he's supposedly a bodyguard. Heroine's romantic motivations were not believeable, and she was often stubborn in ways that put her life at risk to no purpose. The action resolution left me not liking the people used as red-herrings as much as I would want to and I didn't care about the antagonist in any way. The big action sequence was wrecktacular then the denouement so boring and so introspective when it should have been all extroversion that I just stopped caring and stopped reading. I will never know what's on the last 10 pages or in her next book even though I already own it.

This is the first in the Bodyguard series and while the suspense was good, the romance was seriously missing for a romantic suspense story. The romance in this book constituted short, clipped dialogues between the main protagonists for the first 150 pages or so with just a hint of chemistry with no real passion between them. Other than that, the author seems promising and I will go on to the next in the series which is called To The Limit.

GOOD BOOK!

When I first started the book, I thought I had made a mistake but I'm glad I continued on because it got better. Nolan turned out to be an all right guy and Jillian was'n the rich B I thought she would be. The villian wasn't who I expected either. I would recommend this book. I enjoyed it.

Overall, I liked the book. It had some good sexual tension between the characters. My biggest complaint to the author (and this book is far from the only offender) is PLEASE if you decide to write phrases in a foreign language that you don't speak, have someone who DOES speak it proofread your work.

Jillian a TV anchorwoman has been receiving death threats and her father calls in Nolan Garrett to be her bodyguard. The beginning of the book started out great. Then the book slid into mainly centering on the attraction between the two characters. It took most of the book before the two main characters decided whether or not they wanted to get involved. There wasn't a lot of action and most of the book centered around the romance. I expected the book to contain more suspense and on the edge of your seat action, but unfortunaltely it did not. However, for the most part it kept my attention and I would be willing to read the next in the series.

What can I say about To the Edge (The Bodyguards) by Cindy Gerard? Well, I can say one thing; it's a definite page turner! I truly enjoyed it. This was my first romantic suspense & it's what got me hooked to this genre. 'To the Edge' has the perfect combo of suspense and romance..It definitely leaves you wanting more & guessing..The ending was a total twist that you didn't expect! This story also had good character development as well as plot and storyline. I recommend this exciting novel to anyone seeking suspense and romance..Trust me..It is an enjoyable romantic suspense that you don't want to miss out on!

I have read this book twice now, I loved it so much!! I couldn't put it down. Cindy makes the characters so real that you actually start to think they could be people you have met. I was actually sad when I was finished reading it because it was so great. I just finished reading it again, it is such an excellent read. I HIGHLY recommend it...