When I read The Collector by Nora Roberts directly proceeding this book, I critiqued it as having a sexist Hero...well, the 'Hero' from this book makes Ash from that book look like positively enlightened by comparison.
Dev is gross. Sorry, not sorry.

Look, I understand that with romantic suspense, there is a certain level of alpha-male macho BS inherently there and I can forgive some of that. But there were just so many times I cringed during this book from him being a possessive, controlling, pushy, domineering, macho jerk.

I have read and enjoyed several books by this author in the past, but they were mostly her historical novels which were written several years ago. I'm thinking that if I went back and read them again I would probably see some of those same characteristics in those love interests, so perhaps it's just something that bothers me more now than it did in my early twenties when I read them.

I also didn't have much love for Lark, our heroine. She has pretty much no personality, and aside from the fact that she has red streaks in her hair and designs handbags, I really don't know that much about her.

But did I mention that she designs handbags? Because she totally does. Don't worry if you forget though, because it's mentioned in virtually every chapter, every time she is leaving one place for another. Perhaps in print it wouldn't have struck me as being as awkward as it felt via audiobook, but the number of times we're told that she 'grabs her Lark bag' or 'she almost forgot her Lark bag' just felt forced, as if the author really wants us to remember that SHE IS A DESIGNER.

There were many other side characters who all blended together for me. Mostly other men who were also varying levels of macho douchebag. And heaven forbid if any of them made eye contact with Lark, because Dev was Not. Having. It. Isn't that romantic? *puke*

As far as the plot goes, I actually thought the first third to half of the book was interesting. Dev is a private detective and Lark is looking for a child that her recently-deceased sister gave up for adoption a few years prior. What starts out as just being a simple inquiry turns mysterious when they can't find records of the adoption and the couple who handled the adoption have disappeared. I was all set for the book to be focused on their search for her niece and this couple who were obviously breaking the law.

But then they find her about halfway through the book, very easily. Dev doesn't even do much to facilitate the finding, aside from calling a bunch of other people to do the dirty work. So we don't actually see him solving anything. He's just told after the fact about the info other people dug up.

Once they find the niece, the story takes a turn that I ended up absolutely hating. It felt like it was done to create tension and drama and for me it felt very unbelieveable and out of left field.

Last, and also least, is the romance. Yikes. This is pretty much instalust, which is fine in some cases, but for me they never get to a point where they earn their romance. At first he doesn't want to mix business with pleasure, but of course they do eventually. But there is never a real foundation for them falling in love. When they think about each other, it is ALWAYS sexual. And quite often inappropriate. They'll be in the middle of tracking down her niece, who has been kidnapped by a drug kingpin, and she'll start obsessing about having sex with him and getting aroused...and then go back in the next paragraph to worrying about her niece. It feels very awkward and sorry, not sexy. Oh, and if I took a shot every time Dev talked about Lark compared to other women and how she's so original and unique (i.e. 'not like other girls') I'd be in the ER with alcohol poisoning. And the thing is, it's never something about her mind or interests. It's almost always about her physical appearance or ability.

So yeah. I didn't think this worked on any level really. It's supposed to be a romantic suspense, but it was neither suspenseful nor romantic. I have one more of her books on my shelves that I've had for years that I'll pick up and try, but as it's another romantic suspense I'm not holding out much hope.