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Title:  Montana Standoff

Author: Sharon Dunn

Publisher:  Love Inspired ( Harlequin)

Release Date:  November 1, 2013

Synopsis:

Sarah Langston has problems. She’s been kidnapped, dragged off into the back woods of Montana knowing the men responsible plan to kill her. All because she doesn’t know where her brother is. Taking a chance, she breaks free and makes a run for it to anywhere that isn’t where the goons are.

Brian Keyes is a police officer in the town who is taking some time away from the job after a key witness went missing and blew his operation. To pass the time, he is working as a Forest ranger in a fire station. He notices the girl running from two henchmen and goes to help her.

They both have a shock when the recognize each other. Sarah and Brian have a history—and a daughter that was given up for adoption—together.

As they make their way to town and begin trying to find Sarah’s brother and track the puzzle pieces down, they are forced to take a hard look at their lives and their relationships. Both with other people and God.

They soon discover that the henchmen belong to a local businessman who Brian suspected of human trafficking. The stake for this game is your life.

Working together, they track down several people who point them in the right directions until they can make one final attempt at saving everyone’s life. They also find that they still have feelings for each other.

It’s a Harlequin romance, so that pretty much sets up the ending.

 

My Personal Opinions

The characters were fairly well developed. Sarah is portrayed as a girl who had a troubled past and worked hard to make the best of things, even though she made mistakes. Brian tries his best; during his younger years when he and Sarah were together, he was under considerable amounts of pressure from his parents who didn’t think she was good enough for him. In both cases, it didn’t take much time and I could envision kids that I went to school with who fit both models.   Thinking back to their behaviors and then comparing them to the characters of Sarah and Brian, I think they were pretty much spot on.

The problems the characters face pretty much stayed constant throughout the entire story. Somebody is trying to kill them, and they need to find Sarah’s brother. What changes is who is trying to kill them, the method used in the attempt and how they (Brian and Sarah) get out of it.

If you could change something, what would it be? (If you wish you could change the ending, don’t reveal it!)

If I was to change anything with this book, I think I would keep things a bit more mysterious for a while. We know who is after them in the first third of the book. How he keeps coming at them is really the only thing that changes. It would have been fun to have more of a mystery, and give the reader something to try and figure out.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. It is short (as are all of the Love Inspired Suspense books) at roughly 50,000 words. It is a typical short read Harlequin. As the name suggests, this is more of an inspirational romantic suspense. So there is no sex in the book and no language issues.

I would definitely take the time to give it a read.

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Title:  In Pursuit of a Princess

Author:  Lenora Worth

Publisher: Love Inspired (Harlequin )

Release Date:  September 1, 2013

Synopsis:

The young widow, Princess Lara Kincade, has returned to her hometown of New Orleans to continue the charitable work of her late husband. She also has a personal motive. She believes that her husband wasn’t killed in an accident but was actually murdered. Now she wants to prove it and expose the murderer.

Gabriel Murdock is a photojournalist who is recently coming off a bad event in his own life. The woman he had been helping to escape from a political climate was brutally murdered. Gabe’s editor has sent him to follow the princess and document her efforts as she prepares for a special art auction.

While getting ready for the auction, Princess Lara has arranged for several pieces of art to be readied as well as one of her own pieces from her individual collection to be on prominent display.   This is where things to go haywire. Mysterious disappearances, threats against her Highness’s life and several other weird happenings plague the princess, Gabe and the rest of her entourage.

As the story unfolds, the princess confides in Gabe and gives him the real reason for what she is doing. This has a two-fold result for Gabe. It stirs the photojournalist in his soul—the part that is looking to solve a great mystery. It also makes Gabe aware of the Princess.

Working together, they begin to forge a bond that neither is sure how to handle. The tension from the mystery builds almost as rapidly as their feelings for each other, until we hit the climax of the book.

Again, it’s a Harlequin, so we know the ending.

My Personal Opinions:

I enjoyed the characters, even if having a princess from America is a bit far-fetched. I suppose it isn’t that much different than having a commoner become princess, but that only happens in…oh, wait. Since Princess Catherine (Kate Middleton) did just that, perhaps the character of Princess Lara is a bit more realistic. However, Lara’s penchant for going after her husband’s murderer isn’t something that fits with my version of a royal. Altogether, it is certainly within the realm of things.

Gabe’s character is one that demonstrates growth and acceptance. He’s trying to work through what he considers a failure when he gets this assignment. Gabe tries very hard to keep his objectiveness on the situation, but as his feelings for Lara grow, he finds objectiveness harder and harder to maintain.

Lara and Gabe find themselves in several different dilemmas. Staff going missing, the caravan is attacked while going to check on a humanitarian project, they get ambushed at one point. The part that made this book much more interesting is that you didn’t know where the attack was coming from. Four good suspects were shown and the reader is trying to decipher the clues along with the main characters. It made for a very entertaining read.

I’d like to believe that I’m sort of like Lara. She’s stubborn when needed, strong when her back is against the wall and resourceful in an emergency. I see those as fairly positive qualities, and I have been told by other, that I display many of those same traits. I found myself thinking about how I would handle a given circumstance, and then waiting to see how Lara would handle it. By the end of the book, I was getting pretty good at being able to guess her reaction.

I thought the progression of clues throughout the book were well done. For those of us who were playing along on the home version of the game, we were able to solve the mystery before we hit the big reveal. It was very satisfying to see that I had come up with the correct answers on who had killed the prince along with the big surprise that happens at the reveal.

In Pursuit of a Princess is a fun inspirational romantic suspense. It has all the hallmarks of a typical Harlequin inspirational romance. I think that Lenora Worth did a great job in balancing the romance between Lara and Gabe along with the suspense that drives the book.

I would definitely put this on my Kindle or other tablet. It was a great read, loads of fun, and short enough to read in a few hours.

 

**DISCLAIMER:  ALL LINKS ARE AFFILIATE LINKS.  USING ONE  TO MAKE A PURCHASE HELPS SUPPORT THIS PODCAST.**

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