DNF Review: Lethal Consequences by Elisabeth Naughton

Three months after rescuing Olivia Wolfe from danger, Aegis Security operative Landon Miller still can’t stop thinking about her, even though she’s off-limits in every way possible. Knowing he’s leaving Aegis and returning to the DIA soon, Landon decides it’s time for their flirty online relationship to end. But Olivia can’t stop thinking about Landon, either. On a whim, she takes a leave of absence from her teaching job to surprise him in Barcelona—and arrives to find a sexy redhead in his hotel room.

Things aren’t always what they seem, though. Landon’s would-be one-night stand is really a member of the Red Brotherhood, a terrorist group targeting Landon for information on a lethal bioweapon. And now Olivia is unwittingly ensnared in their deadly plot, too. Forget escaping emotionally unscathed; Olivia just wants to make it home alive. Yet to survive, she’ll have to put her trust in the very man who not only broke her heart, but whose lies now threaten both their lives.

In the second book in bestselling author Elisabeth Naughton’s popular Aegis series, heart-pounding suspense stirs up deliciously sizzling romance.

DNF

I want to preface this review with the fact that I love Elisabeth Naughton’s PNR, and I was very excited to read this. I also have been trying to be easier on heroines in Romantic Suspense, because I tend to get annoyed when they aren’t badass. That’s not fair, because seriously, if I were in this situation I’d be the pansy TSTL heroine! LOL

But even trying to go easier on the heroine, I just couldn’t handle this one. Olivia basically is in a long-distance friendship/beginnings of a relationship with Landon, and she decides to surprise him by meeting him in his hotel in Spain…where Landon is getting ready to bone some other girl.

That is fine in the sense that the two of them really were just friends at this point, and he feels she’s too good for him. But part of the problem is that he’s really off his game and the woman is actually there to kill him. So he doesn’t know this, picks her up and takes her to his room. Olivia then knocks on his hotel room door and they are so happy to see each other…then the other woman walks out of the bathroom, ready for action.

Olivia is understandably hurt, and I’m actually ok with this part. I didn’t get to the point where I had to stop reading until she got kidnapped. Because she runs off after Landon saves her butt, she’s a target. The operative in his room overheard everything between them, so she knew she could use Olivia to get at Landon. This whole setup works. But Olivia is set up as this too-perfect paragon who is just too good for Landon, and it just felt like she went from liking who he was to being afraid of him. Then when she wakes up in Greece, the kidnappers make her feel like Landon is the bad guy, and they’re there to help. AND SHE BELIEVES THEM.

I gave it a few more chapters and then she went from being afraid of him, to wanting to screw him right there in captivity, after he’d been tortured. Her whole personality made no sense to me. I had to call it quits.

Look, if I get kidnapped and drugged, and the man with me is part of the NSA and a private security firm (Aegis), then wouldn’t I trust him over the folks who drugged and kidnapped me? I mean, that’s common sense. So she gets all huffy and doesn’t believe him, then she does believe him…I thought that whole situation was weird.

I try not to be the person who calls the heroine TSTL, but this really was a bad move. Who trusts the guys who kidnap and drug you?

Again, I want to stress that I love Elisabeth Naughton’s writing, and I’ve already bought the first book in this series, but I really hope I like the heroine better in that one.

NOTE:

I didn’t rate this one, because while I hated the heroine, I did like the author, the writing, and the plot. I just couldn’t with the heroine anymore. But YMMV (your mileage may vary)

***ARC courtesy of Montlake Romance