Review: Ms. Couper delivers!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 11 6, 2012
** spoiler alert **Lexxie Couper takes her readers in a slightly different direction with Suspicious Ways. If you're at all familiar with Ms. Couper's writing, you'll know that it's usually a combination of compelling characters, heartfelt emotion, intriguing plot, and scorching hot action between the sheets (or elsewhere...).With Suspicious Ways, Ali Graham and Jackson McKenzie simply get it on a little less frequently and explicitly than they might in one of Ms. Couper's other books. Ali is a young, extremely competent sailor, but you'd never know it from the way the other captains shun her. They gossip that she was the cause of her father's untimely death in a boating accident several years ago, and the loss of business is ultimately affecting her ability to stay afloat. Jackson was her boat-building father's business partner, and he's always been strongly drawn to Ali's many charms. He's back in town, and finds her just as irresistible as before. Unfortunately, others do as well, and that throws another wrench into the already complicated works.My one complaint is simply that part of the plot hinges on the characters making assumptions about each other or the situation and failing to communicate openly. While I admit that this all too frequently happens in real life as well as fiction, it drives me bananas when a large part of the conflict is driven this way--I just wanted to sit them both down and give them a smack upside the head.It's testament to Ms. Couper's writing though that I cared deeply about Ali and Jack and wanted desperately for them to be able to work things out. And the supporting characters are also appropriately likeable or despicable as called for :)Suspicious Ways is an enjoyable contemporary romance--after all, where Ms. Couper writes, we readers can follow knowing she'll deliver a good read.