Sweet Reward by Christy Reece (Last Chance Rescue #9)
Romantic Suspense
December 27, 2011
Random House

Reviewed by Mandi

Jared Livingston works for Last Chance Rescue (LCR), an organization run out of Paris that rescues kidnap victims, usually in very dangerous situations. Currently, his company has noticed a trend of very young infants that have gone missing. This is not the normal human trafficking of teenage girls they usually see. Making it more personal, Jared’s ex-wife and her new husband’s six-month old daughter has gone missing. Even though Jared is not on good terms with his ex-wife, he still feels invested in this case.

Back in the states, Mia Ryker runs her own small rescue firm, Ryker’s Rescue. She actually once worked for LCR, but she took too many risks and was let go. Mia also has a client that has a missing baby, and Jared is assigned to go out to Chicago to see if there are any links to his case.

Mia and Jared meet, they end up back in Paris to pursue the string of kidnapped infants, and work together on solving the case and falling in love. Which is all fine and dandy, except the story didn’t work for me at all.

I’ll begin with a very unlikable hero. Jared had a bad childhood, where he was abused in the foster care system. I get it. He is dark and tortured. Moody and broody. But instead of being a dark hero where I couldn’t wait to see the heroine woo him, he had no personality, and was just kind of mean. I didn’t understand Mia’s attraction him at all. Mia is the typical “delicate” female and Jared immediately doesn’t trust Mia because he thinks she looks too vulnerable.

She’s just not LCR material. She lives outside of Chicago in a house that looks like it belongs in a 1950s sitcom family, with five dogs and a cat.

Right, because someone who lives like this couldn’t also be a strong, well-trained agent. And I waited for Jared to change his attitude but that doesn’t really happen throughout the book. Something else that didn’t sit well with me is that Jared and Mia meet an informant and the situation turns dangerous. Instead of Jared running after the suspect, (who has a limp!!!) he decides to stay with the uninjured Mia who happened to be shot at but wasn’t hit. What? Is this the actions of a man who is suppose to be this elite LCR agent?

As the story progresses, these two fall in love. I think they are suppose to have a “I hate you, but really dig you” flirtation, but instead it really feels like they don’t like each other and then all of a sudden they fall into bed. I didn’t buy it. Again, Jared is such a flat character, I didn’t feel why Mia would be attracted to him at all. I liked Mia a little better, once in a while she would have a witty response to something Jared said, except when it comes to his ex-wife. (who has a missing baby). Mia is very bitchy about her and can’t believe what a cold woman she is, it felt very jarring and out of character for Mia to act like that.

The villain in this one gave me trouble too. He felt too over the top, and at the same time kind of dense. He is in charge of the kidnapping ring, he is a big, important guy. When Mia needs to infiltrate by going undercover as a possible girlfriend of his, he doesn’t vet her to see who she really is. He is an acquaintance of her parents’ yet doesn’t know she owns her own company hunting the very people who steal babies, like he is doing?

So much in this book frustrated me and the romance fell flat, I can’t recommend this one.

Rating: D

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