Yours in Black Lace

I got this one, signed, a while ago in a charity auction--I don't remember which one. Charity auctions are a great way, by the way, to both help out a worthy cause and discover new authors.

Stevie Madison has been lusting after her boss, P.I. Emilio Sanchez, for months. But with all the women around him, she doesn't want to be one of the crowd, so she writes him anonymous, sexually explicit notes, signed "yours in black lace."

Then she gets surveillance photos of herself, and asks Emilio for help investigating. He recognizes someone in the background of one of the photos and realizes she's in danger, and decides to stick to her like glue to protect her. While he's doing that, he discovers she's the anonymous letter writer.

The romantic show more suspense part of the story was... well, romantic and suspenseful. Stevie and Emilio had both been attracted to each other for a while, so the fast-paced romance made sense, and alternately running from and chasing the bad guys kept the tension high. I enjoyed that part very much.

But there were two things that kept me from really loving this book--one was the anonymous letters. Even though we know he enjoyed them, and they worked, anonymous letters in general squick me. It's stalkery. And the letters themselves were embarrassingly cheesy, though I wouldn't be surprised if that's just me and everyone else thinks they're hot. I have a low tolerance for that sort of thing.

The other thing was Emilio's secret. I'm not going to give it away, or even say what kind of secret it was, but it needed to be either expanded on or left out entirely. As it is, it's interesting, but there was really no point to it, as far as the plot goes. If it had connected to the suspense plot in some way, or if it had been something Stevie wondered about, it would have made more sense, and would have made the book feel more layered.

At any rate, I have one or two more of Mia Zachary's books in my TBR pile, and if they're as entertaining as this, I'll be happy. show less