Strong Enough

Leighton (the Bad Boys series) brings intrigue and passion to the first installment of her new erotic romance trilogy, but poor writing mars an otherwise enjoyable story. When Muse Harper’s father, an Army colonel, sends her to the West Coast for her own protection, she doesn’t complain. But then her father goes missing. Short on options, Muse hires Jasper King, a ruthless and charismatic bounty hunter, to help her find him. Jasper struggles with the new experience of being distracted from his mission by a sexy client, and a lengthy car trip to South Carolina threatens to undermine their restraint and throw the couple into a romance with no future—unless Jasper can learn a new way to live and Muse can accept revelations about her father and his past. Jasper is emotionally damaged and protective without being an aggressive jerk, and Muse’s enthusiasm for his displays of dominance is palpably genuine. The prose is wretched—“The heat of it, hotter than the bath water. The wetness of it, wetter than the bath water”—and every development is a cliché, but the chemistry is believable and the sex is hot. (Aug.)