Book Description: A spellbinding thriller, as suspenseful as it is sensual. The richly-textured settings of Seattle's commercial waterfront, San Diego's topless beaches and the breathtaking waters off Cabo San Lucas create the backdrop for a riveting story of love, romance and betrayal, as a young couple find themselves in a fight for their lives having been set up by the FBI as perfect bait.
MY REVIEW:
I was drawn in by the description of this book. It sounded like a page turner. I started reading. I continued reading. I read almost 70% of the book before it got to the part resembling the description. The author took the long way around, telling Corey's entire life story beginning as a boy, his first love, childhood sweet heart, who he married after highschool. He then came home to find her in bed with his best friend. He walks away, just up and starts a new life with Jennifer, who he never tells he is married to someone else. They fall in love, they buy an old boat, with Jennifer's money. They restore the boat, chapter after chapter of details about their experience fixing up that old boat. They start a charter business, and immediately they lose a very powerful judge overboard when he tried to urinate over the side at night in an alcohol stupor. When they realize he is gone, it is a frantic and heroic rescue. At that point, I thought maybe it was going to start developing into the plot. Not yet.
The story is from the man's perspesctive, which is interesting in it's own way. The women, Jennifer and Jasmine, who are so completely loveable in this book, from a man's perspective, ask no questions, make no demands, just give of themselves. Jaz even willingly has threesomes in order to make her man, Travis happy, and keep him content. Whatever the men want. Even in the end, when Jennifer finds out Corey is married, no big deal, it's okay. That had me wondering.
I am still waiting for the suspense. Finally, it gets there, when Jennifer volunteers to fill in for the cook on another boat, who's daughter was hit by a car and he needed to be with her. The men who chartered the boat brought young women on with them and were not interested in fishing. They began under the pretense of using the boat as a floating brothel, but eventually murdered the crew in order to kidnap the women and sell them in slave trade. I had a hard time reading some of it. It is heavy handed with violence, torture, murder, and rape. Could have lived with less details in that. Even the poor dog gets violently murdered.
It seems a whole lot of this book could have been condensed or cut out and still it would have been a good story. If you are interested in or have knowledge of fishing and boats, you may enjoy it very much. The ending of the book was where the story became quick paced, and the adventure began. I did enjoy Jennifer as a strong female lead at the end, when standing up to and outsmarting the kidnappers until help arrived. I also was touched by Corey's devotion to Jennifer, sailing off to find and rescue her no matter what happened, refusing to give up.
I was given this book for free in exchange for an honest review.
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