Story got off to a slow start but midway picked up and was a good steamy romance with a crime to solve. Reporter Kimi is in Paris for couture week when she encounters Holden, supposedly a photographer. My rating is 3.5*
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I went into this book with fairly low expectations. I was sick, and looking for something light, so I picked this one from my collection of Harlequin Blazes. For those of you who aren't familiar with category romance, Blaze is Harlequin's "sexy" category. The good ones are steamy and exciting; the bad ones are like watching porno paint dry. This one was not just good and steamy; it was excellent. The sex wasn't what made it good (there were several run-of-the-mill scenes, and one very hot chapter involving photography) but the characters. The heroine, Kimi Renton, is a fashion editor for an upscale Manhattan magazine. Holden MacGregor is a PI working undercover to solve a couture theft. They meet in Paris. The plot is kind of silly, but the writing and the characters raise it way above regular category romance fare. Every once in a while you find an author who really speaks to your sense of what a romance novel should be, and for me, Nancy Warren is one of those authors. I will definitely be checking out her backlist. Four and a half stars. ( )