Perfect Timing

Following Wrapped in Wishes, her delightful twist on time travel, Bicos has opted for romantic thrillers. But in providing the elements of both romance and suspense, Bicos has tended to weigh down her books. Here, Bicos puts all the puzzle pieces on the table, making the first 80 pages markedly less than romantic or thrilling. Cherish Malone works for the company designing the wing of an experimental plane. A year and a half before, the prototype had crashed, bringing pilot Conor Mitchell and co-pilot Alec Porter into her life. Alec loved her, she loved Conor, and Conor left her at the altar. Then Alec e-mails her that he's in danger, but Conor discovers Cher is the one in danger and the two are forced together to solve a mystery that involves alien abductees, Russian scientists, a renegade governmental operative and an unscrupulous businessman. In the final tally, the book is rather longer on suspense than on romance. The romance that's there veers from being sensually satisfying to unconvincingly rococo--what man would think, ""What was it Proust had said? The taste of the madeleine... that's what it had been like. Tasting her. Remembering. Feeling it all over again, that wild ride of the heart""? (Aug.)