Customer Reviews

Heat of the Moment (Harlequin Blaze, No 70)

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

 

 

Award winning, best selling author LORI HERTER weaves a sensual, sultry, tale in her new novel HEAT OF THE MOMENT for Harlequin Blaze.
In this emotionally charged book, we get to know our hero and heroine from page one. Josie Gray is shy and even a bit backward in her feelings about sex (what little she has had of it). Peter Brennan has no such problems. Though confined to a wheelchair (or so we think), he responds to Josie right away, and that is just from watching her through a window!

But things are about to change for Josie. After years of hiding behind her work as a earthquake research scientist, she is ready to take back her sexuality. And who better to help her then her sexy new boss Peter?
This was a wonderfully spicey, fast paced story. Ms. Herter really delivers the action, right up to the "climatic" ending.
This book is a must have for all romance readers and LORI HERTER fans. I look forward to the next exciting tale LORI HERTER has for us.

Earthquake research scientist Josie Gray buries her sexuality in working to retrofit old bridges and buildings to make them earthquake-proof. While earthquakes are unpredictable, she considers men even more so. When talk circulates that her company broke into the competitor's system and even sabotaged their competitor's trials, resulting in a nearly fatal accident, Josie leaves her job. She goes to the competitor, Peter Brennan to apprise him of her suspicions, trying to assuage her own guilt.

Before he meets Josie, Peter has never met a woman who does not even wear lipstick. Yet Josie's innate sensuality takes him by storm. Although he is suspicious of her motives, her accepts her word and, surprisingly, offers her a job. Since the accident that nearly killed him, Peter has worked for home. Although he has recovered sufficiently to leave behind his wheelchair, he has maintained the injured façade until he could determine who had tried to kill him. He knows being around a man in a wheelchair makes Josie feel safe, and wants to use the opportunity to help her rediscover her own sensuous nature. He underestimates the fact that she values truth above all else.

Author Lori Herter takes a slightly different approach to the fulfillment of erotic content in HEAT OF THE MOMENT. Rather than an impetuous romp with explosive consequences, Josie and Peter take a slower approach to sensual exploration. They work to gain trust and heal old wounds, insuring that Josie feel safe, which compounds the emotional complications as trust unravels. Fans of author Herter will recognize this marvelous authorial voice, whatever the genre, with her fluid prose and deftly woven

Heat of the Moment by Lori Herter
Harlequin Blaze # 70 - January 2003

Josie is a research seismologist working for Earthwaves developing technology to predict earthquakes. When she discovers that the owner of the company may have caused a near fatal accident to a rival company's president, she resigns. Josie has a strong sense of ethics so she goes to Peter, the rival who is now wheelchair bound, and tells him of her suspicions. Peter finds Josie intriguing and he admires her honesty. He hires her to work with him in his home lab working out the final bugs in his company's technology. After a very bad experience in college, Josie has lived her life without men; but the attraction to Peter is very strong. Peter helps Josie shed her inhibitions.

I think most will find this book enjoyable, but there are some issues that may not appeal to all. I had liked the Peter character very much until near the end of the book. He treats Josie very badly and I'm not sure whether he was properly redeemed or if he should have been redeemed. Until his brutal verbal attack, I had been enjoying this book, and this book would have earned a 5 star if that scene had been written differently.

Someone loosened the overpass structure that Frameworks Systems had constructed causing a terrible accident. Though no one was killed, CEO Peter Brennan was left in a wheelchair. He fears that the industrial espionage incident could lead to a follow-up with him dying on try number two so he actually fakes his inability to walk in an effort to uncover the assailant. Peter wonders how far his rival Lansdowne of Earthwaves would go to cripple Frameworks.

Research seismologist Josie Gray quits her job at Earthwaves due to the Brennan incident that she believes her firm purposely caused. Still not feeling right and propelled by a lingering guilt, Josie visits Peter to apologize. Instead he shocks her and himself by hiring her as he suspects she might be a plant for further sabotage. As they begin to fall in love, his distrust grows geometrically proportional simply because Peter refuses to believe Josie is an innocent pussycat.

HEAT OF THE MOMENT is an engaging romantic suspense that places strong emphasis on the intrigue and the accompanying doubts of the hero even in love. The problem is that Josie holds more mental wounds than Peter, a divorcee recovering from a near death experience, but her anguish never fully develops so that the audience feels little towards her. Additionally a key secondary player has way too much influence. Still Peter is quite a hunk that readers will adore which makes Lori Herter's novel fun especially how he uses his wheelchair to manipulate the woman he loves but distrusts.

Harriet Klausner

I really liked the main characters' names, but that was about all I really liked. There were several plot points in this book that I didn't like. First, the plot seemed slow and boring. Second, I guessed the unstable (psycho) out to kill the hero even before the character appeared on the page. What is it with all these Blaze books where a pscho is trying to kill a main character? Anyway, third, I did not like the way the "hero" does a 180 degree turn after they (finally) have sex. And he has no proof! I hate characters (male and female) that turn into jerks after having sex although usually it's the woman who does it in romance novels.

I also didn't like the character of Josie. She's smart but in ten years she couldn't figure out she had been raped? Wasn't she ever concerned that he was out abusing other women? I couldn't buy the fact that in all that time her loving parents and friends hadn't picked up on the fact she needed psychiatric help. The set up of this book would have made more sense if she had been in the process of receiving professional help for her problem.

Finally, I don't think this should be a Blaze book. The slow, sexual pace of the book made it feel much more like an intrigue book. And like I said before, even the intigue here is pretty thin.

The book was O.K., but the woman tended to harp about what happened to her, and you kind of got tired of hearing it.