Review: Getting Rowdy by Lori FosterGetting Rowdy by Lori Foster
Series: Love Undercover
Published by Harlequin, HQN on September 24, 2013
Genres: Contemp Romance, Rom-Suspense, Romance
Pages: 448
Format: Paperback
Source: Advance Reader Copy, NetGalley
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four-stars

An alpha hero's attraction to the one woman he can't have could draw him into a killer's snare in the sizzling new novel from New York Times bestselling author Lori Foster.

Charismatic bar owner Rowdy Yates isn't the kind of man women say no to. So when he approaches waitress Avery Mullins, he fully expects to get her number. However, the elusive beauty has her reasons for keeping her distance-including a past that might come back to haunt them both.

Avery spends her nights working for tips...and trying to forget the secret Rowdy is determined to unearth. But when history threatens to repeat itself, Avery grows to rely on Rowdy's protective presence. As the sparks between them ignite, she will be forced to choose between the security she's finally found...and the passion she's always wanted.

I really enjoy Lori Foster’s Romantic Suspense and a week or so ago, I read/glommed all of her Men Who Walk the Edge of Honor books. Then I saw that she has a cross-over series called Love Undercover and I was so excited! While Getting Rowdy is book 3 in this series, I think it works really well as a stand-alone. You can catch a few glimpses of other couples, but you don’t feel as if you’ve missed anything.

Getting Rowdy opens with Avery staring up at the bar where she works. She left her phone there the night before. But Avery has a secret. A couple actually. And when she hears a noise coming from the back, her first instinct is to flee. But she has spent the past year becoming a new person, and this new Avery doesn’t run from every strange noise. Shoulders back, she creeps down the hall, and walks in on. .. her boss Rowdy getting a bj from a redhead.

This flusters Avery since she’d finally decided to take Rowdy up on his many offers of hooking up. But in true Lori Foster fashion, it’s just not that easy, is it? Rowdy takes Avery home that night, since she missed her bus because of him, and he discovers is how much he really likes Avery. She might like him back. But in the meantime, she’s getting phone calls at the bar from her former life. Rowdy has a feeling they aren’t just the “wrong numbers” she’s telling him they are, and he wants to help. But first Avery has to let him in.

Avery has run from her former life, but she didn’t run very far. In fact, this bugged me-she only ran about 30 minutes away. For someone who’s hiding, and I get she’s hiding in plain sight, I do, it seemed sloppy. Or too easy maybe? I don’t know.

The mystery/suspense plot was really good, and Lori Foster is a great Romantic Suspense writer, but Avery’s “hiding” didn’t work for me. she was scared and paranoid, so it makes more sense she’d have gone farther away from home, not just to a seedy side of town.

That being said, I think on the whole, this book was fantastic. I bought the first book in this Love Undercover series and I’m excited to read it. In fact the Run the Risk ebook is on sale for $1.99 right now, and I recommend buying both that book and this one. You won’t regret it.

FYI: If you click the kindle “buy link,” it’s about $3 cheaper than B&N

***ARC courtesy of Harlequin via netgalley

four-stars