I know I have a bit of a pet-peeve with condom use but, c'mon, Ms. Howard is a veteran romance writer. There are more reasons than pregnancy to use a condom. At the very least she could sit down and have the characters talk about being tested. More than just "It's okay, I'm on the pill." Blergh. It always takes me out of the story.
There is a special brand of Howard WTFery that I look forward to in her books. And in this book, while it was a good book, that craziness was way toned down. I mean, the books I think of when I think Linda Howard have agents whose memories have been imperfectly wiped, bear stalkings (again, black bears don't do that), the only road into a small town being shut down so a team of bad guys can retrieve a microfilm, etc. This, this was strangely devoid of any of that-- but still a good book. And what Howard does nicely is depicts small town life. There's a line in her book that even pokes gentle fun saying that people in big cities always expect small-town folks to all know one another but they don't -- one of my major major pet-peeves (see here Fool's Gold, a town of 125,000 where they somehow not only ALL know each other but everyone's extended history).
Anyway, Morgan Yancy is a super-duper, undercover agent who's had a hit taken out on him that was nearly successful. In order to figure out what's going on, his team leader, Axel, sends him to recuperate in West Virginia. The specific person Morgan is being sent to is Isabeau "Bo" Maran, Axel's ex-step-sister. It seems the two had a contentious relationship when their parents were married for eight months and Axel has never quite gotten over it.
Bo is the chief of police in a small town but her position is supposed to be more clerical than anything, taking care of the paperwork so that her deputies can do the on-the-streets work that they feel more comfortable with. There were some plot points and character issues I had with Bo and this job (she has, like, three) but, again, used to WAY more craziness from Howard so these were minor.
Then there is the plot moppet, Bo's golden retriever, Tricks. I am a huge Goldie nerd and Tricks sounded about right for that breed of dog but, dang, half the book was an ode to the dog. I would have loved to see a little bit more about what was going on in the discovery of who was trying to kill Morgan

Spoiler

(the "we found the mole" sentence is one line with a character that was never mentioned in the book before, at least not by name, but we're supposed to care?)

or more about their relationship development. Although, I do have to admire the deft touch of covering major swathes of time with a deft touch. It cured the book of insta-love/lust.
Overall, a nice addition to the Howard canon and I think that regular readers will really enjoy the book. I personally missed the crazy (it's the reason I requested the ARC) but others may not even notice it's gone.

So this book isn't great, but it's an easy read. The thing that almost had me putting it down was the lazy sexism for no apparent purpose. Everything was gendered to the point of being strange. It almost felt like someone had gone through with a label maker put girl thing or boy thing on almost every object that appeared in the book. It's not heinous just seriously irritating.

I didn't mind the plot it's mostly small town melodrama, and puppy love (quite literally) with a bit of action at the end. Mostly I wanted to know more about this small town then the relationship between Morgan and Bo. That's because Morgan mostly sucks; and there is a lot of suspension of disbelief with the general set up of the book. I did really like Bo though. She felt real to me in both her actions and approach to life. I was pretty much hoping for a love triangle just so she could have a different love interest, and I normally find them tedious. She is a person who's been through emotional turmoil and held it together, made mistakes and owned them. She's a great character who I wish was in a better story. I can't recommend the book, but I did enjoy reading it.

Another great book by Linda Howard

Exciting fun read with a sexy Alpha male and a strong female lead but the best part is the dog!

3.5 Stars

This was an OK read for me. It was very long and slow so I skimmed quite a bit. I’ve not read any other books by Ms. Howard so I don’t have a point of reference for comparison.

I liked both characters even though we never really got a deep dive on Morgan’s history. I really liked that he was vulnerable after his injury but wasn’t a complete pain the butt patient. His healing took time and he was pretty good through most of it. He’s a complete and total bada$$ alpha and I liked him a lot. He is sweet without being unbelievably so. I liked that he was a take charge and get things done kind of person but didn’t discount Bo’s input on his situation and valued her opinion. Bo was a strong female which I appreciated. She was as no-nonsense as Morgan but she did show her vulnerable side a couple of times. She showed emotion without being overly dramatic or annoying which was nice for a change. I liked the romance between them and the ending to their story.

I see a lot of folks had trouble with the dog being a main character but it didn’t bother me. Bo really had no family to speak of and only had a couple of close friends because she closed herself off from that. It was absolutely believable and realistic that she would have a super smart dog as her loyal to the death best friend. I didn’t have a problem with Tricks and thought she was a good addition to the story.

This was a pretty low angst read even though several things did happen to the couple.

This story had a lightheartedness about it that has been missing from Linda Howard's more recent books. There was still a good bit of thrill in the story, but I really liked that it had a bit more fun to it in the way the relationship developed between the main couple. Add in a quirky dog and a quirky small town, and it was a great summer read!

Oh.my.god....this book is soooooo slow. Enough with the dog already....ok, I get it...the dog is smart. The characters are not developed past there names and simple body description. Drama is almost non-existent.....I am at the 8:49 mark of this audiobook marked as 9:45 long.....and NOTHING has happened. The most excitement so far...was the opening paragraph...then the rest of the book so far, is all about how many times a day the lead characters take the dog out to pee or walk. Oh, wait.....there was ONE brief kiss, and an old lady got mad and called someone a whore...big whoop.....

This was ok, I guess. It's hard for me to truly judge, because I'm not a huge fan of contemporary romances (or romantic thrillers, which this might qualify as). But the writing wasn't bad and I was engaged enough to finish.

I had serious a problem with the bait and switch the book presents though. The blurb says that Bo (the female lead) is the police chief, which sets the reader up with certain expectations. But in fact, 'police chief' is a purely administrative position, with no expectations of actual law enforcement involved and no police training required. She's basically just there to do the paperwork the 'real' policemen don't want to be bothered with. At one point someone shoots in her direction (anything more specific would be a spoiler) and she has to be carried away, princess style, almost in a swoon. This is not at all what a reader expects after being told a female character is the police chief! So, from the get go I had one serious disappointment. I liked her well enough, but she wasn't the female lead I was promised.


On a more positive note, while Morgan was all alpha-male and cliched macho man who can't eat a salad, drink skim milk or read girly books, he was pleasantly un-asshole like. There were lots of consent moments, overt and subtle, and he was self-aware when his protective propensities countered with what Bo wanted. He never undermined her autonomy or forced her to do something 'for her own good.'

Then there was the true main character of the book, Tricks, the dog. She was cute and she lent a needed thread to the narrative. But I thought there was too much Tricks. I got tired of her being fawned over and made the center of attention. Plus, as a dog owner (with a pretty brainy canine) I thought a lot of the ways Tricks was accommodated was bad dog parenting. When they have to take a different car because otherwise Tricks would have to sit in the backseat, there is a problem. She is still A DOG.

All in all, I probably wouldn't have picked this up if I hadn't won it. But I wasn't disgusted at having read it either.

-my mom suggested i might like this book because of the dog, and i really did enjoy the book. the dog is awesome.

"princess is her title, but her name is tricks. besides, i call her a lot of things. for the first year of her life she thought her name was No No You Little Shit."

"she figured he'd rather punch himself in the face than ask for help again."

"tricks reappeared, tennis ball in her mouth. she all but danced to the front of the treadmill, and let the ball go. it shot between his feet and across the room and she darted after it. morgan swore at the top of his lungs as he tried to avoid the ball and keep his balance on the moving belt. for a split second he felt like one of those cartoon characters slipping on a banana peel, with feet and arms going in four different directions."

"bo tried to stay on her feet with the dog bouncing around like a delirious dervish."

"let me check my give-a-shit meter to see where that registers. nope, nothing there. sorry."

"i'd rather you punch me in the nose and get it over with."
"you dont get to choose. i'm pissed, but i'm still deciding how to allocate the pissery."

"the words 'i love you' trembled on the edge of her consciousness, thought, but left unsaid because such words were either a gift or a burden and she wasnt certain which they would be to him."

Bo, a small town part-time police officer, gets talked into taking care of Morgan, an operative of her once step-brother's elite squad that was nearly killed.

Morgan was shot near his home, the location of which shouldn't have been known to anyone but his team and friends, which necessitated the need for a secret place for him to convalesce while his supervisor looked into the breach in their system.

Bo, who is working two jobs trying to put a dent on her debt after a couple of bad decisions, seems like the perfect solution to the problem, since no one could connect Morgan to her, while at the same time any strangers after him would be easy to spot in her small town.

Neither of them is exactly happy with their arrangement, but they're both determined to make it work, and after slowly getting to know one another, they become friends and eventually, lovers.

The bad guys were

Spoiler

the couple of politicians that Morgan happened upon while he was fishing, that wanted to hide the fact that they were making an illegal deal with some Russians and did not want to take the chance that Morgan saw something incriminating. The team's hacker was also on their payroll, which kept them one step ahead of the investigation at all times, before Bo suggested to her step-brother to look into him as a suspect

.

Interesting story that got somehow sidetracked by the dog, of all things, since I doubt there was even a scene where Tricks didn't make an appearance. It slowed the pace of the story quite a bit and while her antics were amusing at times, there's far too much time spent on her instead of the actual couple.

Update: There will be another book in the series, featuring GO-Teams, [b:The Woman Left Behind|34217540|The Woman Left Behind (GO-Team, #2)|Linda Howard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1501535593s/34217540.jpg|55268427].

Isabeau (Bo) is a small town police chief who is forced to accept a house guest in Morgan, an operative who has survived a gunshot wound and needs someplace quiet and safe to heal. In the beginning, Morgan is extremely weak, but as he gets stronger, he and Bo become more and more attracted to one another. When Bo's beloved dog, Tricks, is threatened, Morgan saves her and the relationship is consummated. There really isn't much suspense in the story until near then end when the culprit who was responsible for shooting Morgan is finally revealed.
The interaction between the two lead characters made for a light and fun developing romance which is enhanced by the love of a good dog, but the suspense aspect of the story is left shortchanged. The middle of the story drags on a bit as the relationship between the characters is explored for almost too long. A good light read by Linda Howard, but there are so many of her books that I liked more than this one.