Off the Rails bu Jill Sorenson
Publication Date: December 13, 2016
Romantic Suspense
LoveSwept

Reviewed by Kini

A dedicated American agent risks everything for a forbidden beauty in the sensual, turbo-charged follow-up to Caught in the Act.

Four years ago, when Ian Foster was working as a border patrol agent, he rescued an eighteen-year-old Mexican girl who’d been left for dead. He never forgot the gorgeous, resilient Maria Santos. Now Ian is an undercover ICE agent on the trail of a ruthless criminal with an intriguing connection: Maria. She holds the only clue to the man’s whereabouts. And Ian is tasked with crossing the border to find her.

Maria has always carried a torch for Ian, the handsome American who saved her life. When he shows up in her hometown, the attraction between them ignites. His intense gaze sets her blood on fire. But Maria is in serious danger. She owes a favor to a drug lord, and soon she’s caught in the crosshairs of a treacherous takedown operation. Once more, Ian’s her sole hope of survival—and his sizzling touch rekindles a passion that goes beyond borders.

I discovered this author several years back and is one of the few I trust to tell me a suspense story. I love that she writes heroines that are typically smart and relatively empowered. There are usually some circumstance holding them back, this is romancelandia after all. No TSTL happening in Sorenson’s books. She also does a great job with secondary characters and building interest yet not overtaking the story. She also writes Latino characters that are fully-formed. This book had all the things that I have come to expect from Sorenson.

This book starts with the characters already knowing each other. The blurb mentions this as being a follow up to a previous book and I would recommend you read that first. I read Caught in the Act three years ago so I had to dig deep to remember. It was also probably the only thing that I disliked about this book was that I felt disconnected from them, but I feel strongly that it was due to my lack of remembering these characters from book one.

Maria and Ian knew each other after he found her beaten after a brutal attack when she was crossing the border. They are brought back together as they search for a criminal. Along the way they have to fight off their attraction to each other. As I have found typical in other books by this author, she writes some pretty steamy sex. And still manages to make it sexy and not eye-rolly. Maria and Ian have been together, but no P in V sex has occurred, so of course we get some hot smexy times along their journey.

“He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Take it all, if you can.”

That sounded like a challenge. He didn’t think she could handle the whole thing? She’d done it before. Surely she could do it again. She sank lower, and lower, her slick heat enveloping him. He felt bigger this way, fuller inside her, but she was determined to get the job done. When she was completed seated, she have him a triumphant look. He was staring at the place where their bodies joined. Sweat dotted his brow. “Now what?” she prompted.

“Now ride me.”

This book is dual POV and works well to see things from Ian and Maria’s perspectives. As is fairly typical for this author, she also gives the POV of secondary characters. Sometimes this annoys me, but Sorenson has a way of writing that gets me invested fairly quickly so I want to know what’s going on with the other characters.

I enjoyed this book. There were some secondary characters that I am definitely interested in reading more about. The suspense felt authentic and didn’t require too much suspension of disbelief. I would recommend this as long as you have read the previous book.

Grade: B

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