Midnight Man by Lisa Marie Rice

Interior decorator Suzanne Barron's new tenant is the most dangerously sexy man she's ever met. Navy Commander John Huntington, a former SEAL (aka 'Midnight Man') works best under cover of darkness. Within hours of meeting him, Suzanne has wild, no-holds barred sex with John, then panics at the depth of her passionate response to such a powerful and dangerous warrior. Suzanne doesn't do sex like that. John is definitely someone she needs to avoid for her own peace of mind. But when killers come for her, Suzanne known she can turn to only one man. John will guard and protect her body. But who will guard and protect her body against John?

The Plot: Suzanne owns a building that houses her fledgling interior design company and some personal apartments. She interviews John "Midnight Man" Huntington as a new tenant, in both the personal and professional veins, and is immediately attracted by him. The feeling is mutual, of course, and John plans to move into more than just Suzanne's building (if you know what I mean..and I think you do). Shortly after he starts moving stuff in, an attacker breaks into Suzanne's apartment. John saves the day and then whisks Suzanne up to a mountain hideaway while the police try to figure out who's behind attack.

The Good: The sex. It was hot. I thought the sexual tension was believable and worked very well for me. I also liked John and Suzanne. Though she wasn't the most kickass heroine ever, she did hold her own. She'd never been exposed to violence and couldn't defend herself, but she held up under the strain well. And she didn't pull one of those TSTL moves and try to prove she had a bigger penis than her ex-SEAL did. Which was good.

The Bad: The timeline and flow of the story. It seemed kind of slow moving in places and bogged down with info dumps. Not only that, but I'm unsure of the actual timeline from the first page to the last, but as far as I can tell, it all happened over the span of a few days. They meet, have sex in the hallway, find out about the intruder, run away to a mountain retreat, have sex a lot, figure out the reason for the attack and head back, after having more sex....but only in a few days? Yes, I realize it's fictional fantasy, but I'm not buying it.

The Ugly: The plot. WTF? So, we have a highly-trained, very deadly former Navy SEAL who now runs his own security company. When Suzanne calls to tell him there's a guy roaming around her house, and it's obvious he's there for her and not just to rob the place, John comes rushing in and kills the guy. Which, ok. I get that. But they have no idea WHY the guy was there. None. I found it really, really hard to believe that he wouldn't try to ask the guy questions or anything. A truly well-trained SEAL wouldn't have snuck up on the guy and just killed him. He would have snuck up on the guy and got the drop on him so he could torture him for info.

Then, we find out who's behind the attack and why Suzanne was targeted and the book just got kind of dumb from there. I don't want to spoil it, but the whole thing seemed way over the top. It was like reading Cover of Night all over again. I couldn't stop rolling my eyes or scoffing at their antics.

Plus, end aside, John didn't seem all that capable. He was going to get his security guys involved in discovering what was up, but once it was mentioned we didn't hear anything about it again. Too many things were neat and tidy yet not explained at all.

Overall I'm going to say the sex was hot, the characters ok, but the storyline sucked. If you're looking for a roll-your-eyes escape that makes you hot, this is your book.

3.0 out of 5

P.S. I actually read this book in August. What does that tell you about how far behind I am with my reviews? *le sigh*