Title: Stockholm Syndrome
Series: N/A
Author: Sage Marlowe
Genre: Thrillers & Suspense
Length: Novel (168 pages)
Publisher: Total E-Bound (August 9th, 2013)
Heat Level: Explicit
Heart Rating: ♥♥2 Hearts
Reviewer: Thommie
Blurb: We don’t get to choose who we fall in love with—and sometimes we fall too far…
Daniel Eames is a bodyguard. Usually assigned to protecting politicians, he has fallen out of his boss’s good books after getting too close to his last charge’s son but when rising Hollywood star and Academy Award nominee Bryan McTiernan receives peculiar letters and requires the best possible protection, Dan is put on the job.
While he agrees that the letters are more than harmless fan mail, he finds it impossible to narrow down his suspicions and Bryan isn’t helping by alternately seducing and irritating the hell out of him. Against his better judgement, Dan falls for Bryan’s manipulations, but the more he gets to glimpse behind the façade of the young actor, the more he realizes that something in Bryan’s past has a strong hold over him. While both Dan and Bryan are aware of this, neither sees the full extent of his fixation.
With the help of Gabe, a fellow bodyguard and friend, Dan pursues different theories and even hires a private investigator to learn about Bryan’s well-hidden past. What he discovers has the potential to destroy more than just a promising career and in the end, Bryan has to make a choice—allow for his past fixation to take him hostage again or run away and into Dan’s open arms?
Product Link: http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=2244
Review: Wow, it’s the first time that I read a book by Sage and don’t quite like it. I’m a bit stunned by this fact and don’t know how to deal with it, however it remains a fact that this book didn’t have that magic hold that Sage’s previous works have had on me so far.
In this book, we meet Dan and Bryan. Dan a bodyguard and Bryan an actor, and the story is pretty obvious that they’ll fall for each other. Nice premises and I couldn’t wait to read it. It gets better as the plot is somewhat a mystery that you don’t get to really see until you’re far into the plot. Dan is trying to find Bryan’s stalker however, Bryan isn’t helping. In fact, during the entire read Bryan is resisting and trying to hide his any involvement or knowledge about his stalker. I kept wondering why and it wasn’t until the near end that this is revealed.
This part of the mystery I loved, I liked and enjoyed a lot. So you’ll very well wonder why I didn’t like the book. It’s just that the characters held no power over me. Bryan was sketchy and completely unapproachable for me the whole way. I read about him and it felt as if I was reading about a liar and that had no appeal to me whatsoever. Even when the truth was revealed and the veil of mystery gone, I still couldn’t bring myself to care. It was a bit too late for the vulnerability of his character to evoke feelings from me. I mean, I did pity him, but that’s that.
And as for Dan, oh my God what a character, what an utter idiot. He was supposed to be a bodyguard and very good at his job right? But he’d fallen from his bosses good graces because he screwed up his former assignment. And ok, I can understand screwing up once, it’s human. But then, this story starts with his boss giving Dan a second chance and guess what, goes on and does the exact same thing that should have cost him his job in first place. Ugh… Moving on, everything his did was against his job, so much so that I was thinking, this guy doesn’t have the slightest idea what a bodyguard position requires, I wondered if he could even carry a gun for crying out loud. He made one mistake after another and when the shit hit the fan, ok guess… Yep he didn’t move a muscle, nothing, zero, zip. Stood there watching the scene as if he was at the damn movies. Ah, so frustrating. Then, there was the fact that Bryan’s character was so damn fishy, that I wondered all the time why on earth he fell in love with him in first place. It just didn’t make sense. Their love scenes, yes were as hot and steamy as I’ve come to expect from Marlowe to write, but it was just that I saw and felt. Lust I get it, but I totally missed the love part there, saw no connection whatsoever and during the entire read felt detached and waiting for something to happen to make get into it more.
Anyway, I simply didn’t get into this one and feel this book needed a bit more work into it, so I’m crossing my fingers and waiting for Sage’s next one.