Last week the “Bug”
that was making its rounds hit our house. All I wanted was the couch,
a cozy blanket, plenty of comfort drinks, and even more importantly,
comfort, cozy books. One genre that I enjoy for light reading is the
Harlequin Intrigues. Most of them are interchangeable, but one that I
read was a notch above the usual and I thought that you might want to
hear about it.
THE SPY WORE SPURS was written by Dana
Marton, an author with a long history with Harlequin. The setting and
the plot could have been taken from this week’s newspaper.
Former army medic Grace
Cordero has returned to the deserted family ranch in South Texas to
scatter her brother’s ashes. She and her brother had been close and
returning to the ranch is an emotional trip for her.
Hearing shots on the
remote ranch one night takes her out in a storm to find Ryder McKay,
mysteriously shot and left for dead. McKay is a top secret commando
soldier who has been sent to the Texas/Mexican border on a secret
mission. Someone is using Grace’s property to smuggle drugs,
weapons, and people across the border.
At the risk of blowing his
cover, McKay needs Grace to help him blend in and get acquainted with
the locals. When a Mexican woman appears at Grace’s door hunting
her husband and two small children, Grace becomes emotionally
involved and may become a danger to the mission as well as to
herself.
The story follows fairly
predictable lines, but with a few twists. The characters were a
little better developed than usual for this type of book. The
“villain” was not a big surprise, but Martin did a nice job of
giving him some personal background which helped to explain his
conflict with what he was doing.
The book also has an
ending that makes the reader aware that the story is not really over.
Whether this was a neat literary trick or a neat trick to prepare us
for sequels, we will have to wait to find out.
There
is probably a reason why Harlequin Intrigue has been around for ages.
They are light, readable, romantic suspense stories and like any
other publisher’s series, once in a while a little gem can be
found.
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