Thoughts: Over the Line

Over the Line

by Cindy Gerard
Book 4 of The Bodyguards series

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

**Side note on 3/27/2016:  Over the Line presented to me the first couple I became giddy with obsession over in Cindy Gerard's romantic suspense world.

Baby Blue and Sweet Baby Jane--I love these two and they are yet my favorite couple in this Bodyguards series.  They had brought me THAT much closer to placing Cindy as a favorite romance author.

So I can’t decide which couple I like more: Eve and Mac, or Baby Blue and Janey (Yes, I’m going to call him Baby Blue. It fits Jason Wilson better than Plowboy, I think.) Both couples are so much fun with the bickering and the bantering and the no angst thing.

And I actually laughed out loud at Baby Blue’s “no holding back”, straight forward spontaneity:

”Speaking of time,” he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, “do you know how long it’s been since I made love to you?”

Her eyes flared with fire. “You make our excuses. I’ll go kiss the baby good-bye.”

“Hey, everyone. Thanks for the great party. We’re going to split and go have wild monkey sex.”

Oh yeah. Real subtle, Baby Blue. But maybe that kind of personality is why I love ya so much.

And… while I’m still hung up on Dallas Garrett (which is strange since I’m not the type to go for broody alpha, and Dallas is definitely generating a lot of broody ever since his presence became more increased in the third Bodyguards book), I think Baby Blue Wilson comes in a very close second for favorite men in the series’ world. He’s just so adorable:

”Hey. What am I supposed to do with this?” Jase asked with a rising panic when No unceremoniously handed him the baby.

This is one of the reasons why he’s become my second favorite guy; because THAT is also a reaction I had had when my cousin somehow managed to plop his one-year-old in my lap while we were at dinner for the kid’s birthday. I’m not sure how it happened -- one moment, I was eating sushi and lo mein from the buffet, the next, I was holding a baby while they cut the cake, and darting my eyes around in a plea to my brothers to figure out what to do with little baby Jason (yes, a nice little coincidence in names, no?). I think my exact words were, “Whoa! How’d this happen? What am I supposed to do with this?”

"….."

I sincerely apologize to all mothers in the world. I really do, for referring to a baby as “this”.

Moving right along…. back to the book now, shall we?


***

I’m going to be upright and honest. I had contemplated skipping forward to the last book to read the story for Dallas and Amy. I mean, their build-up from To the Brink was just so mysterious and attractive that I bemoaned the fact that we don’t get to see them for another two books. So I was a little concerned that I would just rush through these next two books simply so that I could get to what I needed to read.

I couldn’t quite battle my own nerdy OCD though: All series MUST be read in order!

Mainly, I hate missing things if the next book in line happens to reference previous happenings. I like being in the loop, if ya know what I mean.

So imagine my delight when I found that I actually really enjoyed Over the Line quite a bit. Especially since I really wasn’t expecting to do so, what with my first impression of Jason Wilson (from the first book) and my prejudgment of fictional celebrities. (It was also an added bonus that there was a side moment for Dallas and his brooding over the missing Amy Walker… which, for some reason, I find exceptionally hot. I don’t know why. Don’t ask.  Things never make sense in my head.)

The story was intense and the suspense and mystery unraveled like Murphy’s Law gone mad. When you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse for poor Janey, you end up getting even more “madness and mayhem”, as she puts it. But the way it was executed and dealt with was engaging. I was hooked and knew that I’d finish this book sooner than I’d planned.

There were still some flaws in the fluidity of the writing and some overused actions, phrases, and descriptors. But I’m not too hung up on them. Some things also tend to get a little preachy; references to previous books’ events seemed forced and kind of, “Why do I care to know about this right now?” But overall, not too bad.

What I mainly loved were the characters and the interaction between Janey and Baby Blue. They were such a fun couple, probably even more so than Eve and Mac.

If there was a list of women in fiction I respected with immediacy (there isn’t yet, cause I’ve never thought to make a list, though I really should), I’m thinking Sweet Baby Jane would make the cut. From the moment that she left her concert stage and gulped down two bottles of water, then began turning on the sweet southern charms for her Baby Blue, I’ve been liking the woman. Then she goes and dropkicks him at a later time and I’m like: “Shit! Girl crush alert!”

There’s something about fictional celebrities that usually don’t sit well with me. They’re usually depicted as spoiled, rich, entitled, arrogant and most of all, bitchy and demanding. But Jane Perkins proves to be strong, level-headed, down-to-earth, practical, no nonsense, and bitchy (but in a good way). She can take care of herself just fine. She’s everything opposite of what I had been expecting upon reading the summary about the new bodyguard assignment being a rock star.

I didn’t think that I’d be able to get into this book without my mind wandering off to Into the Dark and my impatience at getting to Dallas and Amy’s story, but as soon as I was introduced to Janey and Jason “Plowboy” Wilson, I fell in love.

Plowboy is nothing like I expected after meeting him for the first time in To the Edge where he came off as a rash and stupid dumbfuck who couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut when it served him well to do so. But seeing him now, he’s so much more intriguing. And he’s so much more adorable than I’d figured him to be -- more than the hot and sexy studs we keep running into in Romantic Suspense novels (which it’s not that he’s not, mind you), I appreciate that he’s barely a brooding alpha male (he does his brooding on the side, but he’s still sunshine and bunnies about his brooding and it kind of amuses me) on the surface when settled next to Janey’s no-nonsense, grab life by its balls personality.

It’s kind of refreshing and I love these two together as a couple.

So, Over the Line: Entertaining, intense, suspenseful, and lots of fun.

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This review was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in May 2014.

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