Mercury Striking

In this heavy-handed introduction to a sexy, postapocalyptic romance series from Zanetti (the Realm Enforcer series), a disease called Scorpius has ravaged the U.S., killing many and leaving others insane. Lynne Harmony, former head of the CDC’s Infectious Disease section, thinks she can find a cure for Scorpius, but someone is hunting her. She shows up at Jax Mercury’s Los Angeles–area compound and asks him to kill the stalker. What neither Jax nor Lynne counts on is an instant, raging attraction that can’t be ignored. The story of a violent alpha male falling for an independent woman (and occasionally abusing her to demonstrate his dominance) in a dire situation is a romance genre classic, but it’s tossed willy-nilly into the postapocalyptic setting, and both the romance and the SF come out muddled. Agent: Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates. (Feb.)