Review: Solid as a Rock
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 5, 2014
Blackjack and Moonlight, the title refers to the two main characters, His Honorable Judge Jack McIntyre and attorney Elise Carroll (who apparently has silver hair). This was a good solid read. I enjoyed the writing style of Magdalen Braden and her characters were likable, fun and keep me interested. At 360 pages, the story went quickly with almost no lag time. There were no monsters, aliens, MC's, or gangsters. This was just a good, well written solid romance. It was spicy without being overly graphic and almost no profanity. In fact this book reminded me of the old school Harlequin and Silhouette novels I cut my romantic teeth on. The drama and tension were generated solely by Jack and Elise with very little outside influence.Jack had me fooled for a bit, because he started out as a flat out hoot, but he was actually ... not stodgy, but straightlaced, and very refined. I would have loved to see him go a little bit wild and edgy. Not anything that would have taken him off the bench, mind you, just maybe a secret tattoo or piercing. When he first publicly declared his love for Elise in his courtroom, I was like "woo hoo, we got a live one." He never deterred from his stalwart plans to make Elise his wife, but there were no more outbursts. *sigh* (I liked the outburst.)I actually thought that Elise would be the more uptight of the couple. Boy, did I call that one wrong. Elise was a FREAK! Ok, maybe not a total freak, but the girl could get her groove on and was NOT shy about it. She just had severe commitment and abandonment issues, thus the crux of the problem. To give the lady her due, she stated flat out and up front, that she just wanted a regularly scheduled booty call. You can't cry foul if all intentions are laid out. Of course, this is a romance, so you know Jack wins. But really, so did Elise, and so did I because I got to tag along on their journey. Good job, Ms. Braden, good job.