ARC Review: Mind Games by Laura Curtis

This is my second Laura Curtis novel and I was surprised that I found it a little disappointing. The description of the book seemed like it would make for a good action/suspense/romance which is one of my favorite combinations for a novel. The book is about Dr. Jane Evans who works in a psychiatric research lab. Jane had the capacity to be a really interesting character because she was focused on controlling the details of her work and life to an almost obsessive point when ish starts to seriously unravel on her. For reasons that I’m still a little hazy on, it becomes clear that Jane is in danger because of her work on developing a new drug. After an attempted kidnapping is thwarted, Jane is assigned a personal body guard. The body guard is Eric Sorenson. It turns out Jane knows him because she tutored him in college and of course he’s superhot. The problem with Jane and Eric as characters is that there wasn’t any nuance in the way they are described. Everything is very blunt. As the book moves on you don’t feel like you are a part of the story, you are very much an outside observer as we travel from one point in the plot to another. As a result, it’s very difficult to emotionally invest in this book. At one point, I felt like I just didn’t care.

The majority of the book is focused on the attempt to unravel the mystery of who was trying to harm Jane. There are explosions and shootings and rapidly changing scenery as the elite HARP security team pursues Jane’s pursuers. I usually like that sort of thing but the science aspects of the book became way too much for me. One, I didn’t really understand them and two what I did understand seemed really farfetched and it just got more outrageous as the book went on. And by “outrageous” I mean that at one point Jane is imprisoned by Mexican cartels. I was like ‘wait, what? How did the cartels get involved?” The other problem for me with the plot is that there are too many pages in which Jane is separated from Eric while he is trying to rescue her. Similarly, there are too many pages in this book dedicated to supporting characters. At one point, we get detailed information about the foster care home one of the supporting characters is operating. Like, I even know about how she bakes chocolate chip cookies when she is stressed and I just do NOT need to know that.

So what about the romance you ask? I didn’t love that either. First, there isn’t enough of it. Second, the romance involves a sort of role reversal where Jane is the one who wants quick and “no strings” and Eric is the one who wants long term. The role reversal isn’t my problem, my issue is that it didn’t make sense. Eric is constantly on the move and involved in a high risk business. Jane lives a very routine controlled existence. I mean her name is JANE. It didn’t make sense to me that she was the one who wanted to play fast and loose with sex and commitment. Speaking of sex, there is almost none and forget about any steamy scenes. Not even a vapor here. Overall, the romance fell extremely flat. There wasn’t a real connection between the characters, no sex and they didn’t make sense together.

There is a lot going on in this book so maybe something in it will appeal to you. It was not the book for me. Because I enjoyed the first book in the series so much, I think I would give the author another try.

**ARC provided by Publisher**

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ARC Review: Echoes by Laura K. Curtis

Decent mystery, great action, very entertaining.

Echoes in a nutshell: Callie discovers that something was not quite right about her birth. Her parents are deceased so Callie embarks on a mission to untangle the questions she has surrounding her birth by herself. Her quest takes her to St. Martin where she encounters the brooding and extremely fine Mac. Mac is embroiled in his own mystery regarding the disappearance of his estranged wife who happens to look exactly like Callie. Dead bodies, bombs and some James Bond level ish ensue.

As a mystery/suspense, this was a good book. It was intriguing and fast paced. The story line was interesting and took several unexpected turns. I personally am one of those mystery readers who want the answers dangled just out of reach for the entire story. I love to guess whodunit but really, I don’t want to know until the last possible moment. So, I was less than pleased when the whole mystery kind of unravels around the 58% mark of the book. I also wasn’t thrilled that I had figured out the “who” though not the “why” or the “how,” very early on. Even though the mystery collapsed before I would have liked, the action and suspense continued and my impression of the storyline was that it was pure entertainment.

This is not a romance in the traditional sense. I usually don’t read books with as little sex as this one had. Why? Because sex in a book is like carbs in real life. You need it to get you going but too much… makes you fat? I don’t know, that analogy broke down on me. The point is, I like a little spice to…spice things up. There wasn’t much spice here but a relationship does develop between Callie and Mac. Their interactions were well depicted and seemed genuine. I particularly enjoyed the substance of Mac and Callie’s dialogue. Readers get to experience Mac and Callie’s background and are drawn into the romance aspect of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed their emerging affair and though it could have been a little bit spicier, it certainly added flavor to the overall storyline. The Callie/Mac relationship also helped to keep things interesting when the mystery kind of crumbled on us.

The writing of this book is excellent. I respect authors who can write about a variety of locations and events in a believable voice because it indicates some effort was put into creating the story and that was certainly present in this book. I recommend Echoes for those readers who love suspense and action books. I would give it a less enthusiastic recommendation for mystery and romance readers but I would still suggest it because it’s a good story no matter what you like.

**ARC provided by Publisher**

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