Warning: This book includes mature content such as: sexual content, and/or drug and/or alcohol use, and/or violence.
Flirting with Disaster by Ruthie Knox Published by Loveswept on 10 June 2013
Genres: Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Pages: 448
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Fresh out of a fiasco of a marriage, Katie Clark has retreated to her hometown to start over. The new Katie is sophisticated, cavalier, and hell-bent on kicking butt at her job in her brother’s security firm. But on her first assignment—digging up the truth about the stalker threatening a world-famous singer-songwriter—Katie must endure the silent treatment from a stern but sexy partner who doesn’t want her help . . . or her company.
Sean Owens knows that if he opens his mouth around Katie, she’ll instantly remember him as the geeky kid who sat behind her in high school. Silence is golden, but he can’t keep quiet forever, not with Katie stampeding through their investigation. It’s time for Sean to step up and take control of the case, and his decade-old crush. If he can break through Katie’s newfound independence, they just might find they make a perfect team—on the road, on the job, and in bed.
*I received a free ARC of Flirting with Disaster from Random House Publishing – Loveswept via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review*
Flirting with Disaster is quite different from what I expected. Sean is a very sexy geek, he stutters – which is why he refuses to speak when Katie can hear him. Katie is a very strong woman, she has picked up the pieces of her life several times, and come out even stronger afterwards. Very caring, she has trouble figuring out what to do with the rest of her life. With just the right amount of hotness, Flirting with Disaster also has a mystery to solve, as Sean and Katie have to keep rock-star Judah Pratt safe from some strange and threatening messages he has received lately.
I don’t know what it is about the strong, silent, geeky type, but Sean got completely under my skin! Flirting with Disaster is mostly about the choices (and the non-choices) Katie makes about her life. She figures that hooking up with Sean might be a disaster, but she wants him, and since she was married with Levi for ten years before he took off with her savings, she figures she really deserves to have some hot fun.
There are some great scenes as Katie tries to unravel the mystery of Judah, and some incredibly hot ones between Sean and Katie. However, there are some that don’t make a lot of sense, too. Like when they’re driving through a snow-storm, and Sean pulls to a stop on the shoulder, puts on the emergency lights on the car, and then a snowplough drives by and buries them… I get that this is a good plot device to get hot and steamy in the car, but it’s not as if they really needed an excuse to get hands on.
Flirting with Disaster is a very enjoyable story, and the fact that there are several sub-plots makes it more intricate than a lot of contemporary romance novels can be. The characters are great, both Sean and Katie are well fleshed out, and so is Judah, even if he is not one of the main characters. The writing flows well, and the smexy scenes are very smexy. If you are looking for a red-hot romance sprinkled with mystery, friendship and teasing family members, you should go pick up a copy of Flirting with Disaster and sit down in a cozy place and enjoy.
What Katie really needed to figure out was how to act cool and icy like some kind of Bond Girl assassin, slinking around and poisoning people by slipping strychnine into their drinks. Except without the poisoning. Her goal was to win herself a promotion from office manager to agent for Caleb’s security company, not to become an assassin. Not unless her ex-husband strolled into town needing assassinating.
Katie wasn’t stunning. She wasn’t even beautiful. She was cute, in an ordinary sort of way, but she got to him. She had this energy, this bright, shiny presence that drew him in. Katie Clark made him weak. He almost hated her for that.
Every time she let down her guard, she fell into her worst Katie-habits again, her fretting and depending and nurturing. Always trying to figure people out, to help them and fix them and make them like her.
About Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms
Linda is an English as foreign language teacher and has a Master's degree in English Language and Literature. She's an avid reader, blogger, compulsive one-clicker and a genre omnivore. Ever since she learnt how to read she has been seen with a book or two in her hands everywhere she goes.
Twitter: bmreviewsohmy
Sounds like an interesting read and I am surprised to find a Loveswept novel that needed your warning label…I must be reading the mild ones..LOL 🙂
LOL Stormi, I try to put my warning any time there are explicit sex scenes, and there were some in Flirting with Disaster… It was a good read 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
An ordinary girl and a geek? I already love them!! Sigh, I have a very soft spot for the sexy, strong, silent, geeky type 😉
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Lexxie!
YUM! Me, too, the geeky guys are made of sexiness 🙂 Thanks for stopping by Silvia.
Holy lord, look at that cover, Lexxie!! I want to read about Kate and Sean keeping the rockstar safe. Haha, I just made myself sound like a prude. 😉 I’m ready for some sexytime, too, lol. Adding this to my TBR though the cover makes me blush. 🙂
I love geeky guys, too! 😀
Jennifer, it’s a very funny story, and the rockstar needs to be kept safe, you know 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
Love the sound of a very sexy geek and something that was different from what you’d expect in the best way.
Yeah, I love good surprises in my stories, Brandi 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
I love books with geeky guys. 🙂
Geeky guys are sexy!
Thanks for stopping by, Pamela:)
Oh I’m all for geeky types so Sean is one character I would def. like! This is not my go-to genre but I like to delve into these romances once in a while as a sort of guilty pleasure read. I’ll def. keep this one in mind!
You should definitely try Sean for your next guilty pleasure, Giselle 😉
Thanks for stopping by.
*ha* I love the strong, silent, geeky type, too, Lexxie! Flirting with Disaster sounds like my kinda read. I like that it has sub-plots to make the story more complex. And really, Sean and Katie just sound like a fun couple. Great review, my dear. And I really must read some more Ruthie Knox!
I hope your Monday was fabulous! *hugs*
It is definitely your kind of read, Brandee. You would love both Sean and Katie, and the crazy rock star.
Have a great Tuesday 🙂 *HUGS*
I’ve heard such good things about Ruthie Knox books! Great characters and chemistry are a winning combination for romance, so I’ll have to pick one of her books up sometime soon. This one sounds like a lot of fun. 🙂
Yup, the chemistry between fun and ‘real’ characters are a must for me, Wendy.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂