Tagged: tara quan
Flirting With Fire by Tara Quan
(Cover picture courtesy of Tara Quan’s site.)
Apprentice witch Catalina Gato is prohibited from assuming her human form in front of her new employer without his express permission. Since he doesn’t know he’s a warlock, he can’t give it, leaving her in a familiar’s limbo. To make matters worse, she’s barred from leaving his house, and her attempts to enlighten him of his true nature results in burnt notes, charred walls, and exploding laptops.
On All Hallows’ Eve, she gets one night of freedom. Deciding some no-strings-attached sex might take the edge off the intense attraction she feels for her clueless boss, she signs up for Madame Eve’s service. When she meets her masked mystery date at the Castillo Capital, she realizes she might have gotten much more than she bargained for.
After being gifted a one-night stand from his annoying best friend, attorney Leo Difuoco reluctantly ventures to the Castillo Capital to celebrate Halloween. When he meets his oddly familiar green-eyed date in a Cat Woman costume, flames literally ignite, sparks magically fly, and life as he knows it changes forever.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
Having read Tara Quan’s Operation Owl, I expected Flirting with Fire to be a semi-serious romantic novel. That’s pretty much just what I got with this second book of hers that I’ve read but for some reason I just liked it much more than Operation Owl.
Maybe it was the fact that both characters are much better fleshed out, even though the book seems shorter. Leonardo is a kind of sloppy bachelor who can’t see things under his own nose, but you get the feeling that his heart’s in the right place. Why else would he care for the cat his crazy grandmother left him? Cat, on the other hand, is a much more vivid character in my mind. She’s stuck in the form of (you guessed it) a cat because she was a familiar to Leonardo’s grandmother and now Leonardo, who doesn’t believe in magic, is in control of her contract without knowing it. So she’s stuck as a cat when she goes out of the house on every night but one: Halloween.
Since this is kind of a romance, you can pretty much guess how the story goes from there when both Leonardo and Cat go out on the same night. Still, Tara Quan does a good job of building up a reasonable amount of suspense by ratcheting up the tension within both characters as well as creating some tension between the two when they meet. And of course, when the romance part finally seems to happen, there’s still the question of Cat’s contract and whether Leonardo is willing to open up his mind and believe her.
The best thing about this book is that it’s emotionally satisfying. There’s no Insta-Love, but rather an instant connection of some sort that in some situations obviously can lead to a one-night stand. So that’s more than believable given the circumstances both characters are in at the time. And by the end, you get the feeling that not only has the main conflict been resolved satisfactorily but that you can guess at what happens next to some degree. It makes for a much better ending than the usual drive off into the sunset with these sorts of things.
So if you’re looking for a good book that’s also fairly light reading with plenty of romance, Flirting With Fire would be a great place to start.
I give this book 4/5 stars.
Operation Owl by Tara Quan
(Cover picture courtesy of Elle Rush’s blog.)
A Beyond Fairytales Adaptation of Grimm’s The Owl
Five years ago, Maya Jain kissed her best friend only to have him run out of her dorm room and leave the state. When he shows up in Washington, D.C., a wanted fugitive sought after by every branch of the US government, she can’t bring herself to ignore his plight. As their physical relationship picks up where it left off, she decides it’s time to make him see her as more than the bespectacled, bookish girl he once called “Owl.”
After being accused of espionage and treason, Zack Strong needs a forensic accountant to help clear his name. Not knowing who he can trust, this white-hat hacker has no choice but to ask his former best friend and math tutor for help. Together they unravel a cyber conspiracy at the Barn, an NSA facility tasked to intercept electronic communications. But as they traverse the nation’s capital to avoid capture, Maya insists on letting their simmering sexual tension take its natural course. Even though he’s never been able to shake the memory of their one kiss, he refuses to let her give up her life for a man with no future.
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook in conjunction with the blog tour in exchange for an honest review.]
Operation Owl was a solid ‘meh’ for me personally. Yes, I went into this expecting for there to be lots of romance (which was fine) but I also expected a little bit more action. I’ll explain.
Essentially, the big conspiracy plot that’s the reason why Zack is running plays second fiddle to the interpersonal conflict between him and Maya. That’s just fine by me in theory, except that in practice, the actual huge conspiracy probably made up less than 25% of the book whereas the rest was about their friendship. With a conspiracy that big, I would have preferred a little more action because it’s pretty important. So even though Operation Owl does have an interesting plot on the blurb, it’s actually very much the ‘romantic comedy’ it’s labelled as. (Though lacking on the comedy part.)
Despite my misgivings about the plot, I did enjoy the characters. Maya and Zack have had a complicated relationship, to say the least. We learn about the events of five years ago that led to Maya kissing Zack and how that in turn led to them not seeing each other in person for all that time. When they finally meet again, having Zack being chased by the government’s hired mercenaries doesn’t exactly make for the best circumstances. Still, they make it work and their bond re-forms. I liked seeing from each of their viewpoints how they learned to let go of the past and just focus on the present. This is definitely one of the better romances I’ve read.
Tara Quan’s writing style is actually very good. It’s well-suited to the contemporary feel of her novel and while it is pared-down, I was never confused about the setting or which character was speaking (as sometimes happens when authors try to cut too much description). She does an excellent job with the sexual tension of both characters and by a certain point in the book you’re just ready to scream at them to go and have sex already. Which is sort of the purpose of that unresolved sexual tension, I suppose.
So character-wise and writing-wise, I really have no complaints. I would have liked for there to have been more focus on the conspiracy, but that’s just me. At least the conflict was resolved nicely (but not necessarily neatly) at the very end and it would almost be believable were I not such a cynic about politics. Again, that’s just me; it’s actually quite a satisfying ending from a reader’s standpoint.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.