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Nevada
James seems to spend her days wishing. Wishing
her job as an analyst for the National Crime Agency (NCA) would be more
exciting. Wishing she’d begin the
agent-training
program she’d been accepted into.
Wishing her love life was…living.
And wishing she could get her hands on Midnight, an
agent whose calls
send shivers of desire down her spine. Some might say that Nevada, whose
NCA code name is Velvet, is in
love with Midnight. But Nevada refuses
to
acknowledge that. To her, love is just a
silly idea that would never happen.
But when
she receives a troubled coded call from Midnight that has the whole
agency
searching for his whereabouts, Nevada
throws herself into harm’s way without even thinking about the
consequences. Before she knows it, she’s
being trailed by drug dealers and is forced into living with Tyler
Call, AKA:
Midnight.
Nevada’s daydreams of Midnight
are
immediately shattered when she learns that he’s an arrogant and
unpleasant
host, not at all the romantic knight she’d envisioned when on the other
end of
the telephone. Still, she can’t help but
feel intense attraction whenever he’s near.
Little does she know, he feels it, too.
Nevada’s and Tyler’s
physical desires often get in their way of working together to solve
the crime
that’s got them hiding out. What’s
worse, when they learn that the very agency that they work for is
behind the
crime, they are forced into maddening isolation. Things
heat up, and they finally give in to
the sexual desires that have them so distracted. But
will love now stand in their way?
While the
plot of MIDNIGHT VELVET has promise of excitement that looms large in
the
beginning of the book, toward the end it just sort of peters out. Burton
writes sex scenes that smolder on the page, but merely skims over
high-intensity moments that could otherwise be a high-climax resolution
to the
crime that the whole situation revolves around.
There are a
few grammatical mistakes and belabored metaphors that, to a discerning
reader, might
be distracting. However, Burton does redeem herself in the end with some
clever and
funny moments of self-talk with Nevada
that rounds out her character, bringing her inner thoughts to the
forefront.
The
characters in MIDNIGHT VELVET are sexy and admirable with just the
right amount
of self-doubting to make them believable.
Readers will find themselves wishing for a little
firearms training from
the handsome and eager Midnight. The
overall strength of this novel is Burton’s
use of sexual dialogue and unabashed love scenes. She
establishes boiling chemistry between Tyler
and Nevada
that jumps off the page, and gives a great romantic ending.
Reviewed by Jennifer
Brown for Road to
Romance
April 15, 2005
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