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Crazy Cool

by Tara Janzen

Series: Steele Street (2)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
2651099,413 (3.79)3
She's sizzling hot...He's icy cool. He called her Bad Luck Dekker, a gorgeous socialite who trailed trouble in her wake. Christian Hawkins should know. Thirteen years ago he saved Kat Dekker's life--only to spend two years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Now it's d#65533;j#65533; vu all over again when he rescues Kat from an explosion that rips through a Denver art auction. This time Christian--now an operative with an elite U.S. task force--plans to keep her close until he figures out why somebody wants to kill her. That is, if he can keep his cool around this sizzling-hot lady.... The daughter of a senator, Kat hasn't forgotten the hot summer nights of passion in Christian's arms before everything went wrong. Now, as the bullets start flying, the sexy, self-appointed bodyguard is back in her life in a major way. Especially when Christian kidnaps her and they go roaring into the night in his brute-powered muscle car. But staying out of danger is tough for two people who are this hot for each other, a little bit crazy, and a whole lot in love....… (more)
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» See also 3 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 10 (next | show all)
Once again great writing strategy to set the tone for the book with the prologue being a set of military orders to General Grant. Is it just me or does this kind of have a Charlie's Angels feel to it? The General Grant who we don't meet and then the men who go out and complete his orders.
Ooh be still my heart a Dodge Charger, damn. Christian Hawkins gets major brownie points for driving this car around.
Not to be to girly here but I loved the line about Christian having a "whole section of his brain with her name on it", it just made me feel mushy. I like how Janzen has the men pining over the women (in some cases over years) such a nice change!
Alright I'm glad I didn't cheat and go straight to book 4 to read Kid and Nikki's story. It looks like Janzen is going to tease us with bits and pieces throughout the previous books until we get to their story. So don't cheat people.
I have to admit that the cars almost steal the show for me in these books, I can't help it every time Janzen describes a car that rumbles I get all tingly.
There is some comedic relief in this book, along with the one-liners Janzen is great at writing she has Christian calling Katya "bad luck" and "Godzilla in Tokyo".
Ok Christian must love her because he is allowing her to eat and drink in his Dodge Charger! I don't let people do that in my Pontiac Sunfire.
I feel like a broken record but Kid and Nikki again so amazing, the scene where Kid crumbles with Nikki after losing his brother almost had me teary eyed.
I guess I either didn't connect well with Christian and Katya or they were not a strong enough couple to carry the story and distance themselves from the other couples Janzen has rockin in this book. This was a decent (just decent) book but only when placed in the context of the series. Christian and Katya were ok but Kid and Nikki definitely overshadowed them when it wasn't even their story.


B- ( )
  WhiskeyintheJar | Feb 14, 2019 |
Tara Janzen's Steele Street series of chop shop kids who became black op agents. For the day you want to just slip away and have enjoy some action/adventure in your reading. ( )
  Bettesbooks | Jul 5, 2016 |
Overall Rating: 4.75 // Action: 5 / Emotion: 5 / Romance: 5 / Sensuous: 3.5 / Intrigue: 4.5 // Laughter: 9 / Tears: 7

Tara Janzen has risen in the ranks on my favorite authors list. This series (The Steele Street Series) has quickly drawn me in and I can't wait to get to the next book. Janzen is a wonderful author who is able to give the reader the necessary requirements for a great romantic suspense series. *Crazy Cool* had: {1} Hunky, ultra-masculine alpha hero. {2} Quirky, yet loveable ultra-feminine heroine. {3} Action galore. {4} Nail-biting suspense from page one until the villain is caught at the end of the book. {5} Interesting, well-developed supporting characters. {6} Off-the-charts romance. {7} Spicy, yet warm sensuality between Christian and Kat. {8} Cute, masculine tidbits that unify the team.

Anxious to get to Book Three, Crazy Wild. See Wolf Bear Does Books (http://goo.gl/85SJt) for a more in-depth, detailed review of this book. ( )
  Vonda_M_Reid | May 26, 2012 |
Katya Dekker and Christian Hawkins meet when he saves her from a gang of "Prom Kings". They spend an unforgetable month together falling in love. Then Kat's mother, a US senator, interferes and sends Kat out of the country and Christian is convicted of murder and sent to jail. Fastforword 13 years and Kat is back in Denver and someone wants to kill her. Christian is part of an elete US black ops group and kidnaps Kat to keep her safe. I laughed out loud several times reading this book. ( )
  hbos0527 | Jul 1, 2011 |
This is why I love this series:

He caught her, and he held her, and he let her cry, and cry, and cry, and he let her use his sheets to wipe her eyes, and her nose, and God knows what, because he had plenty of clean sheets, and he only had one Kat.

Now don't let the not-perfect rating confuse you. I love this series, and I’m turning into something of a crazy Steele Street fangirl. The reason I’m not giving the books five star ratings is that they’re a bit like those crazy action movies – you know they’re bad for you but you love them too much to complain. Author Tara Janzen creates compelling, sexy characters and writes hilarious and moving dialogue. You read these books to fall in love with the hero, and this one has a hero so great he could have spent the whole book sitting there eating Chinese takeaway (as he does for part of the book) and I would have loved it.

To summarise the series, it’s about a bunch of superhero men in Denver who work for a top secret government organisation. They are former car thieves, and now they restore muscle cars as a cover for their other work. Just about everything that happens in the books – chases, arguments, big revelations, sex – has something to do with a fancy car, and all the cars have women’s names. The timeframe for a Steele Street book is never more than a day or two, so you just have to suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride.

Katya Dekker’s mother is a rich and famous politician. The night Katya becomes prom queen, a group of her classmates take a joke too far and stab her and then chase her down an alleyway with the obvious intention of gang raping her. Teenaged car thief Christian Hawkins happens to see what’s going on, and he rescues her. The two fall in love and spend a month living together in a hotel room.

“And how many girls have you kissed, Christian?” she’d asked, daring to glance up at him.
“Just two.” His grin had broadened. “Just mi abuela, my sweet little grandmother . . . and now you.”
He’d bent his head down to hers and brought his other hand up to cup her face, and within half a minute of his mouth touching hers, she’d known he was such a liar.

But then (with Katya's mother's influence) Christian is arrested and wrongly convicted of the murder of one of the boys from the alley, while Katya is sent out of the country.
Thirteen years later, Christian is working for this super-secret agency and is assigned to protect Katya. He’s decided the best way to deal with her is to act indifferent, but he can’t help but call her by the name he gave her when he went to prison: Bad Luck.

“Maybe you should wait for me. This thing at the Gardens with Bad Luck, give me two days and—”
“Bad Luck?” Dylan interrupted on a short laugh. “Please, tell me you’re not calling her that to her face.”
Hell. He just had, but that was beside the point.

Of course, it’s only a matter of (a very short) time before they get back together.

Bad Luck. That’s what he’d called her, what he’d probably been calling her for the last thirteen years—and she wasn’t even going to touch his “Darth Vader in Chanel” comment.

Tara Janzen writes with such an engrossing, enjoyable style. Everything from the love scenes to the action scenes are so entertaining; full of humour and emotion. There’s never a point in these books where you feel like you can put them down and take a break, because the writing keeps you turning the pages.

Wow. She was amazing. Like Godzilla in Tokyo. Total destruction.
He crossed the elevator and leaned down in the passenger side window, resting his arms on the door.
She swung her head around, looking guilty as hell, the empty cup in her lap, her eyes wide, her finger still in her mouth, eating the evidence. She had a whipped-cream moustache, and it was all too much, way too much for him to handle anymore. He gave up. He was done, with nothing left to fight with, absolutely nothing.
She started to speak, but it was way too late to talk.
“Hawkins, I’m so—”
“Shhh, Kat,” he said softly, leaning farther in, his hand sliding around the back of her neck, his mouth coming down toward hers.

I loved Quinn and Regan in the first book, and I loved Christian and Katya just as much. This is definitely a series where you’re going to like all of the characters.

I absolutely loved the way Christian and Katya worked their way around each other, trying to figure out how to be together after thirteen years. Tara Janzen knows how to make things funny at the same time as making her characters interesting. When they were travelling around Denver in ‘Roxanne’, meeting suspects, they had very different perspectives on Katya eating in the car.

Katya
She looked around for a place to put her orange peels and decided on the shifter console. There was a small, scooped-out part, and if she was careful, she could just fit the peels into it. His car was very clean on the inside, and the last thing she wanted to do was make a mess.

Christian
She was an amazing slob, but he’d known that from their time together in the Brown Palace...
... He liked his cars clean, all of his cars, but especially Roxanne. She was classic muscle, customised, one of a kind after all the work he and Skeeter had put into her—and Bad Luck was turning her into a Dumpster.

The story lost its way a little bit at the end, with too many tangents, and secondary stories taking up more page space than the main story. I felt a little short-changed by that. Kid and Nikki are to Tara Janzen’s series what Sam and Alyssa are to Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters – they take over every book. Luckily I like Nikki more than that dreadfully self-centred Alyssa, but I want to read their story in their own book. I don’t want them stealing the books away from other characters I love and want more of.

However, they're pretty great.

"I was hoping he would talk to Nikki.”
“He will.” Everybody talked to Nikki, sometimes as a form of self-defence, if nothing else. He’d seen her go into a chatterbox mode under stress that almost defied the laws of nature.

Yet again, there is also a serious overuse of the word ‘Geezus’ – said by just about all of the male characters. However, I expected it this time, so I wasn’t as annoyed by its use.

This is exactly the series you need when you want to be entertained. You’re guaranteed to fall in love with the men, and to enjoy sympathising with the women. You have a fair idea of how things are going to work out, but it’s the way the characters get there that makes these books so good to read. Crazy Cool is every bit as good as the first book, Crazy Hot. I’m so glad I discovered this series. ( )
1 vote ZosiaCanberra | Aug 27, 2010 |
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She's sizzling hot...He's icy cool. He called her Bad Luck Dekker, a gorgeous socialite who trailed trouble in her wake. Christian Hawkins should know. Thirteen years ago he saved Kat Dekker's life--only to spend two years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Now it's d#65533;j#65533; vu all over again when he rescues Kat from an explosion that rips through a Denver art auction. This time Christian--now an operative with an elite U.S. task force--plans to keep her close until he figures out why somebody wants to kill her. That is, if he can keep his cool around this sizzling-hot lady.... The daughter of a senator, Kat hasn't forgotten the hot summer nights of passion in Christian's arms before everything went wrong. Now, as the bullets start flying, the sexy, self-appointed bodyguard is back in her life in a major way. Especially when Christian kidnaps her and they go roaring into the night in his brute-powered muscle car. But staying out of danger is tough for two people who are this hot for each other, a little bit crazy, and a whole lot in love....

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