Rating: ★★★ +.5 | 384 pages | Avon | Romantic Suspense | Release Date: 12/26/2006
Stealing an ancient manuscript from an eccentric South American antiquities collector should be an easy task for expert “recovery specialist” (okay, thief) Sebastian Caine. But when he stumbles across a murder scene he finds himself teaming up with ethnobotanist Dr. Kat Lyda and they discover century old secrets that could change the world.
I was so excited when Avon sent a Selena Montgomery in the most recent Avon Addicts package. As many of you reading this blog know, Selena Montgomery is the pen name of Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. I’m not much of a romantic suspense reader but this book pulled me in with a high stakes adventure through the fictional country of Bahia. It sort of reminded me of The Da Vinci Code but instead of a Girl Fridaywe get fully developed female characters and a true romance.
Two-people-on-the-run-together-from-a-thing is my least favorite version of romantic suspense because it involves the characters getting to know each other and falling in love in a short period of time which doesn’t feel realistic to me.
Now, I do get the sense from the author’s note that Sebastian was a beloved side character in other books so I’m curious to go back and read the other adventures. Sebastian works great as an anti-hero and his push and pull with the more altruistic Kat kept their chemistry sizzling–even though this book has a fairly low heat level by today’s standards. Montgomery perfectly weaves together a fictional history of colonialism, myth and fable for the fictional Bahia that makes the country seem real. I liked that most of the thrust of the story is returning items back to indigenous tribes, I feel like that’s not something you see a lot.
I hope with all the attention around Abrams that Avon will give her ebook covers a modern update.
*Received as part of the Avon Addicts program!
