Forged in Desire

Starred review from November 28, 2016
Jackson (A Man’s Promise) continues her contemporary Grangers series with the sizzling, fast-paced tale of a driven bodyguard and the wealthy heiress he’s hired to protect. After Margo Connelly serves on a Virginia jury that convicts a powerful criminal, her life is in danger. Enter Lamar “Striker” Jennings, a bodyguard with a checkered past hired by Margo’s wealthy uncle. Though at first she’s reluctant at first to have a bodyguard, other jurors are being killed, and she recognizes protection is not optional if she wants to stay alive. As the tension ratchets up, so does the passionate sexual chemistry between Striker and Margo, and he puts his life and his heart on the line. Jackson’s deft plotting and effective red herrings keep the suspense high as her multidimensional characters command the reader’s attention. Intriguing subplots, including one involving a psychic investigator, add texture to the story. The only flaw of this first-rate, satisfyingly sexy tale is that it ends.

December 1, 2016
An heiress in peril, a bodyguard with a heart of gold, and villains of every stripe populate this romantic thriller.When wedding-dress designer Margo Connelly and her fellow jurors declare a man guilty of murder, they find themselves in the cross hairs of his paid assassin. Enter Lamar "Striker" Jennings, an elite bodyguard hired to keep Margo safe--and does he have his job cut out for him! In addition to being targeted by a killer, Margo is being harassed by at least three other parties: a cheating ex who wants to get back together, his former associate who nearly got arrested for helping stalk her, and her wealthy uncle's mercenary girlfriend who sees her as a threat. In this spinoff from her Grangers series, Jackson (A Lover's Vow, 2015, etc.) packs in a little too much action to be believable. The novel's strengths are the propulsive courtroom scene in the prologue and the episodes that bring out Margo's and Striker's personalities and pasts. Readers of the previous series may also enjoy cameos of characters from the earlier books. But the plot drags in the middle, and the many lovemaking scenes interspersed with two-dimensional bad guys and a bitchy villainess don't quite lift it to the pace demanded in romantic suspense. It even takes a couple of climaxes for the multiple threads to be tied up. Notable for an ex-con hero who's earned professional success despite having been dealt an unfair hand and a heroine who stops ignoring a fatal threat before the final shootout--unlike many "too stupid to live" heroines in the bodyguard-romance subgenre.

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December 1, 2016
Jackson begins a new, multicultural romantic suspense series, a spinoff from her Grangers trilogy, which introduced the Summers, owners of a private security firm. Front and center is Lamar Striker Jennings. His mission is to protect Margo Connelly, the niece of the firm's CEO. Margo has just spent six miserable weeks on a sequestered jury that found organized crime leader Murphy Erickson guilty as charged. His response to the verdict is to proclaim that everyone in the courtroom for his trial will be murdered by an assassin. The killings will only stop when he walks out of prison a free man. As the weeks pass, and the bodies pile up, Margo and Striker, her live-in protector, go from client and bodyguard to a couple involved in a hot and steamy relationship. Striker is as capable at protecting Margo as he is at making love, which is fortunate because the assassin is not the only threat Margo faces before the two can find their requisite happy ending in this intriguing work of romantic suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)