Review: Good writing, but book felt claustrophobic and heroine had no agency
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 1, 2013
This is a sequel to the book The Masseuse - Violette Dubrinsky .  I did not read the first book which introduced the two main characters here, Jezebel and Ramsey, and chronicled them falling in love.This is not like me. I have this...thing....where if I am aware there is a series, I have to read it in order.  Someone can say to me 'the first two books are garbage and terrible and you can skip them and start at the third book' and I just can't do it.  I did this once, tried to start a series at the 'best' book and I couldn't get past chapter one.  I was too preoccupied with what came before.So it is something of an accomplishment for me that I read this without feeling the need to stop and go back and get the first one.In the end, I can say that one could read this on it's own without having read the first one and still come away with a strong impression of the story.  And truthfully, I don't think having read the first one would have made any significant difference in my  enjoyment or understanding of the story.In this book Jezebel and Ramsey start off apart.  They are in love (this is evident) but separated.  He is the 'Dragon' the head of a powerful and dangerous Korean crime family.  Jezebel is an upstanding citizen businesswoman.  At the start of this book, a member of Ramsey's family has been killed because of who they are and Ramsey is on the warpath -- killing folks to find out who ordered the hit.Jezebel's break-up with Ramsey is seen as a boon to the FBI who hopes that she'll turn on Ramsey and help them in their investigation against him.  But things go pear shaped very quickly with a war between Korean organized crime families breaking out and Jezebel being put in Witness protection. And then all the action shifts to South Korea.I have to give the author credit.  She makes her hero a mafia-like Don and she doesn't sugar coat what he is or what he does.  There are scenes of him torturing and killing people and there is an unblinking (literally) review of the unsavory businesses in which he is involved.However, that is the crux of my problem with the book.  I don't want my romance heroes to be criminals.  I don't want my romance to have to play out against a back drop of mafia wars.  Jezebel articulates this perfectly when she tells Ramsey that she wants to be able to run her business, have their kids go to the park and have play dates with other kids and not worry about being killed.  Again, I give the author credit for not having Jezebel be this swoony eyed numbskull who  thinks that what her man does is all macho hotness.  She's worried and she hates the whole situation.And yes, in the end the author resolves all this in a nice red legitimate, legal bow.  But the entirety of the book has us all mired in this criminal underworld.  It is claustrophobic and for much of the book Jezebel is utterly powerless.  She had no agency whatsoever.  I could somewhat put up with the story of Ramsey's redemption.  But I had to sit through Jezebel's inertia to get there.I do like this author she is a great storyteller.  But this book just didn't completely work for me in the end.