Off the Map by Tamara Morgan (Winter Rescue #2)
Released: November 6, 2014
Contemporary Romance
Self Published
Reviewed by Mandi
This book starts with Scott and Carrie recently broken up. They have that, “I hate you but I still lust after you and I secretly probably love you but let’s focus on the hate right now” vibe going on, and the author makes it really cute. Carrie and Scott both work for the same search and rescue squad – Carrie is a helicopter pilot and Scott trains the rescue dogs. Besides breaking up with Scott, Carrie isn’t sure if her license will get revoked with the FAA due to the fact she did an unauthorized flight, and crashed her helicopter. Carrie seems to always be involved in one disaster after another. Scott is an extremely superstitious person, so when he was dating Carrie, after she broke his mirror, erased a ten-year old ballgame from his dvr and washed his lucky vest, Scott had had enough. Secretly, he was too upset about her crash and couldn’t handle his emotions towards her, but the excuse that she washed his lucky vest is nice to run in her face.
Five years he’d gone without washing it. Five years he’d gone without losing a single rescue dog. Every animal he’d trained was alive and accounted for, either working the field or happily retired with all the bones and open fields they could wish for.
It was silly to be superstitious – Scott knew that. He was a grown-ass man with grown-ass beliefs about the origin of the universe, and he knew on an intellectual level that the amount of grime on his vest has little to do with whether or not the dogs he trained lived or died. But after spending five perfectly content years with his dirty clothes and his full-length mirror propped up against the bathroom wall and his heart lodged firmly in his chest, he had to believe that something had happened to change his luck so drastically.
When Scott finds out one of his beloved (and I mean BELOVED) rescue dogs is lost in a bad winter storm, Carrie puts asides her difference with him and they go out to look for her. This being a romance book, let me say there is a pretty decent chance they get back together, but I don’t want to be the one to spoil anything.
Tamara Morgan writes really fun hate/lust in this book. Carrie loves to get under his skin, as much as possible. Like when Scott knocks on Carrie’s door:
“What’s our secret code?”
The sound of his forehead hitting the door in a gesture of exasperation was unmistakable. “We don’t have a secret code, Carrie. Just open the door.”
“Oh, we have a code. Maybe if you try very hard, you’ll remember it.”
Pause. “You mean that one?”
Yes She meant that one – the one they’d come up with on playful night with a pair of handcuffs and two of Carrie’s silk scarves. The one they’d never actually had to put to use, because neither one of them was all that good at being submissive.
It was a mistake to introduce the subject, though, because the moment she let her thoughts wander down that path, there was no retrieving them. Her thoughts were uch too independent for their own good. They frolicked and remembered. They tingled to think of Scott pretending to lose the key to the handcuffs and vowing to keep her chained to his bed forever.
He groaned, sending a jolt of desire through her. He must have been remembering too. “Banana Nut Muffins.”
She snickered in spite of herself. “What’s that? I couldn’t hear you.”
“Banana. Nut. Muffins.” His words were no louder than before, and she could almost feel him tensing up through the solid walnut door.
“Nope. I didn’t quite catch that. Once more? For old time’s sake?”
“Banana nut muffins!” he practically roared.
Carrie and her girlfriend even find a Ken doll that is wearing a vest and make a voodoo doll of Scott, so they can inflict their anger on the doll, cursing it and hoping for rotten things to happen to Scott. But then this happens:
She shifted and felt the roll of a spherical object move from the top of her waistband to the small of her back. It was his head – and it was definitely detached from the rest of his body.
She murdered him. Real-Life Scott was on top of her, gazing at her with a look of longing, willing and hot and hard where his erection pressed against her thigh, and she’d murdered the voodoo doll that controlled his future.
Since he didn’t appear to have any intention of moving, she twisted her back and managed to fish out the rubbery ball that contained his fate. Holding it between her fingers like a bingo counter, she brought it to his attention with a groan.”This is bad.”
For a novella, this feels like a full story. I also really enjoyed the first book in this series, In the Clear – both can be read as stand alones.
Rating: B
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