Review of Adrienne Giordano's A Just Deception

Title: A Just Deception (Private Protectors #2)

Author: Adrienne Giordano

Publisher: Carina Press

Formats: Ebook

Source: NetGalley

Publication Date: September 5, 2011

Rating: 3 out of 5

Have you ever had a friend who’s smart and well-educated but makes incredibly dumb decisions? If so, you’ve met Isabelle DeRosa, heroine of Adrienne Giordano’s A Just Deception, the second book in Ms. Giordano’s Private Protector series. I absolutely loved the first book, Man Law (read my review), so I was really looking forward to reading the second book in this series. Unfortunately, I feel really conflicted about this second book. Like the first, the outstanding portrayal of the relationships between the male characters and the smoldering sexual tension between the hero and heroine are its strengths, but I was really uncomfortable with several of the decisions the heroine makes over the course of the book.

Isabelle De Rosa is a lawyer working in her uncle’s high-profile criminal defense firm. When her creepy cousin Kendrick makes a surprise appearance at the firm, she contacts Taylor Security for help updating her home alarm system. They send former SEAL Peter Jessup to help her out, and the two immediately set off sparks. Before they can act on their attraction, Kendrick turns up murdered and both Peter and Izzy are suspects in his death. When the FBI approaches Izzy to go undercover at Kendrick’s charity’s compound in Ohio, she accepts the job in an attempt to prove her innocence in Kendrick’s death. But the more she learns about the cult-like charity, the more she’s going to need Peter’s help to expose the truth. Neither one counts on falling in love complicating everything.

This novel has many strong points, and my favorite is undoubtedly the great interaction between Peter and the other members of Taylor Security. The dialogue between the male characters is hilarious and really well done. We don’t always see such strong relationships between male supporting characters in romance, but Ms. Giordano seems to pull this off effortlessly. The give and take between the men spills over into the male-female relationships as well, since the dialogue between Peter and Izzy and the other female characters is engaging and witty. This also reflects the excellent pacing of the novel. The mix between suspense, action, and romance is just right, ensuring that you’ll keep turning the pages, while the sexual tension between Peter and Izzy leaps off the page.

***SLIGHT SPOILERS***

The problems I have with the book all have to do with Isabelle’s character. She was sexually abused by her cousin Kendrick for more than seven years as a child. Ms. Giordano does an outstanding job of portraying Izzy as a survivor rather than a victim, and you’ll want to cheer when Izzy manages to fight off Kendrick’s advances. However, she makes several decisions over the course of the book that struck me as so bizarre and frustrating that it interfered with my enjoyment of the book, hence my comments at the beginning of this review. We learn that Kendrick’s father, Izzy’s uncle, convinces Izzy and her mother to cover up Kendrick’s abuse when it’s discovered, which is frustrating but unfortunately doesn’t strike me as all that unusual. What drives me nuts, though, is that despite this, Izzy works in her uncle’s law firm! I just do not understand this decision. She explains this away as saying that her uncle “owes” her career because she saved his by covering up the abuse. She believes that working at the top criminal defense firm in the state will catapult her career. This seems like the stupidest decision a rape survivor could make, especially since the chances of her running into her abuser, her boss’s son, are pretty darn high.

The second highly questionable decision she makes occurs when Kendrick attempts to rape her again, this time as an adult. Thanks to her determination never to be a victim again, she’s able to beat the stuffing out of him, get away, and call Peter for help. We then learn that Kendrick got into the house because he used his father’s key!!! It gets worse, though. She refuses to call the police, insisting that she and Peter return Kendrick to her uncle, because she doesn’t want to involve the family. What?!?! The family IS involved, because your cousin tried to rape you!! This becomes all the more confusing when she acknowledges to Peter that she worries that her family’s decision not to prosecute Kendrick has allowed him to sexually abuse others. If she’s that concerned about it, why does she refuse to involve the police? I could understand if, as a criminal defense lawyer, she decided not to press charges because of how a trial could destroy her life, but she never even mentions this, instead focusing on not involving the family.

Because of her past, Izzy’s sexuality is understandably an issue throughout the novel. Ms. Giordano does an excellent job of portraying Izzy’s problems with intimacy with Peter, which I find to be highly believable. Her intimacy issues complicate her relationship with Peter later in the novel when she makes questionable decisions about how to elicit information from the leader of Kendrick’s charity. I found this section to be difficult to read because of its content but well executed, even if as a reader you want her to make better choices.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t get over Izzy’s decisions concerning her family. She’s portrayed as a survivor who’s working hard to overcome her past, which is admirable, but her insistence in remaining in such close contact with family members who have betrayed her in unforgiveable ways strained my credulity and seriously affected my enjoyment of the novel.

Review of Adrienne Giordano’s Man Law

My favorite man law? Number 18 – Never mess with a man’s grill. And no, that’s not a euphemism. A man’s appliances and gadgets are apparently hands off to buddies, and so is his sister, which causes a ton of problems in Adrienne Giordano’s Man Law. Men have a lot of unwritten rules that make little or no sense to women, and Vic Andrews, security consultant, seems to follow ALL these rules. I’m willing to bet good money that if he went to the movies with a buddy, they’d leave an empty seat between them, just so there are nooooo misunderstandings. Vic is definitely a tough guy, but he’s also funny, sweet, and endearing. Just don’t tell him that!

Adrienne Giordano’s debut novel, Man Law, is a romantic suspense, and it’s definitely a winner. My mother-in-law loves to read romantic suspense, and I can't wait to recommend it to her. The novel begins on a beach, with our hero Vic Andrews realizing that he’s in deep trouble, because he just hooked up with his best friend’s sister, Gina Delgado. Never mess with a man’s sister is one of these deeply entrenched man laws Vic follows, but this is the second time he and Gina have hooked up, and it’s starting to get complicated. Gina is a 35 year old widow of a deceased firefighter, so she knows all about the constant stress of worrying for her loved ones, plus she’s got 3 kids to raise without their father. The last thing she needs is to get involved with Vic, whose spent years working under dangerous conditions. To make matters worse, Vic has just learned that a terrorist is targeting him in retaliation for taking out his younger brother, which  places Gina and her three kids in some serious danger. You’ll definitely be rooting for Vic and Gina, as they work through an emotional minefield while fighting off this terrorist’s vendetta.

There are so many things to love about this novel, but the characters really sold it for me, especially the male ones. This book reminded me a lot of what I enjoyed in Shannon Stacey’s Yours to Keep – the male characters sound like real guys, laughing at each other and giving their buds a hard time over women. The titular man laws make numerous appearances as we watch Vic Andrews, tough guy extraordinaire, go down for the count, and it’s fun to watch him break almost all of them when dealing with Gina. Never admit you’re wrong? – I’m pretty sure this one’s written in stone for guys, but Vic manages to break it and live to fight and love another day. It’s clear throughout the novel that Vic’s never had problems with the ladies, but his long-time friendship with Gina’s brother Mike means that he’s known her for a long time. He clearly respects Gina, but he also finds her smokin’ hot, and as a widowed mother of 3, that’s just what she needs! The scenes where Vic calls out Gina’s teenage son Matt and tells him that he’ll just have to deal with Vic’s presence in their lives are perfect, and make me wonder if Ms. Giordano has her own teenage son, because Matt is super cranky and sullen about his Mom’s new boyfriend.

Gina is one of the more likeable heroines I’ve read in a while. She’s 35, has 3 kids, and has been widowed for 4 years. She’s starting to realize that she’s buried Gina the woman in favor of Gina the mother, and I think a lot of women can relate to that. Her grief over her husband’s death is an important part of the story, because she has plenty of doubts about starting something with someone who, like her husband, makes a living in a dangerous profession. However, she’s clearly moving in a positive direction, and it’s a pleasure to see her take charge of her sexuality while dealing with kids and pressure from her loving family.

I found the pacing of the book to be just right. We learn about the threat to Vic and his loved ones almost immediately in the novel, and the tension is maintained throughout, but there are realistic breaks in the action to develop the relationship between the leads. There are some real nail-biting moments and one gut-wrenching one that I won’t spoil for you, but the intensity of the action is where it should be. The reactions of Vic and the other characters to the powerful events that take place come across as highly believable, and the suspense hanging over them all will keep you on the edge of your seat.

If I had to quibble about anything in the book, it would be that the last action sequence was almost anti-climatic because of the intensity of the sequence prior to it. That prior sequence packed a much more powerful emotional punch, and the last seemed to be almost an afterthought, although it did resolve everything nicely. Additionally, Gina’s second son Jake seemed almost superfluous at times, since Gina’s other two children are much more central to the plot and more clearly developed. I’m not sure that she needed to have three children in this novel, although we certainly get the sense of how harried she is as a single mother.

In short, I really enjoyed Ms. Giordano’s book and highly recommend it. This is the first in her Private Protectors series, with the second one (A Just Deception) coming out in September 2011. I’m hoping that her ebook sales will be strong enough to warrant a print release some time next year, as Man Law is a strong beginning to a new series. You can buy Man Law at Amazon and the Carina Press website.

I received this book for review from the publisher, Carina Press, through NetGalley.