Prince Joe (Tall, Dark & Dangerous, #1) in Romance Series Lists

Feb 08, 2009 Eastofoz rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010, romantic-suspense

Normally I don’t like stories about princes and kings from fake countries –they tend to bug me especially with a contemporary setting because they come off as dumb but this book thankfully didn’t focus on that too much. For the most part it was a light romance with a dollop of suspense and some heartfelt moments scattered around.

Joe Catalanotto is a navy SEAL whose job is to impersonate the prince of Ustanzia who has had an assassination attempt on his life during an official tour to the US. Ver Normally I don’t like stories about princes and kings from fake countries –they tend to bug me especially with a contemporary setting because they come off as dumb but this book thankfully didn’t focus on that too much. For the most part it was a light romance with a dollop of suspense and some heartfelt moments scattered around.

Joe Catalanotto is a navy SEAL whose job is to impersonate the prince of Ustanzia who has had an assassination attempt on his life during an official tour to the US. Veronica St Jean is hired to teach Joe how to look and act like the prince and it’s no mean feat considering that he comes from the wrong side of the tracks. To Veronica’s surprise Joe is a quick study. As for their relationship, Joe pretty much wanted to jump her from the get-go and she found him attractive if boorish which of course he only did to get on her nerves. Slowly they both feel the pull, end up doing the horizontal and then start second guessing each other which brings the blossoming relationship to a virtual standstill for a few too many pages for my liking.

I loved Joe :) He’s this tough as nails alpha who has a believable soft side. I’m not a fan of the teary-eyed heroes but my heart just broke in pieces for poor Joe for how much he loved Veronica and wanted to be with her. He sort of reminded me of some of Lisa Marie Rice’s heroes from her Midnight series. He’s a great kisser and a champion whisperer. What I didn’t like about his character was that at times he saw himself a lowly second class working stiff compared to Veronica’s uppity high class character. Not only was the guy a navy SEAL but he was an expert in explosives, an engineer, a linguist and an officer. It didn’t make sense that he’d have feelings of being lower class given all he accomplished.

Veronia is a fairly decent heroine. She’s one of those prim and proper gals who just happens to fall for the guy that lets her know she can let it all hang out with him and she certainly does. Sometimes she over-thought her relationship with him which got irritating after a while but it did add to the emotional high points of the novel so I could over look that.

The book does get too formulaic at times and you think it’s going to veer towards the dumb but Brockmann catches herself in time to put it back on track. It’s not a brilliant story but it’s pretty good for the most part. Thankfully there isn’t an insane amount of focus on the suspense side and the bad guys and their story is kept to a minimum so it doesn’t feel like it’s taking too much time away from the love story.

It’s a pretty good, quickie romantic suspense story with some spicy steam and good characters.

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