Grace Under Fire

This latest addition to Garwood’s long-running “Buchanan-Renard” series (following Wired) is a steamy, opposites-attract, romantic suspense novel with a scattered, somewhat rambling storyline. All Grace Isabel MacKenna wants is to take a walk in the Boston sunshine. Zoning out and writing a song in her head, she doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going. When she finally realizes she’s lost, she hears gunshots, and a bleeding man turns the corner and falls into her arms. His pursuer charges after him, and without thinking, Isabel picks up the bloody man’s gun and fires, killing the attacker. Isabel’s family sends Michael Buchanan, ex-Navy SEAL and attorney, to make sure she’s okay. When it turns out Isabel was the intended target, Michael appoints himself bodyguard. Though they give in to the attraction between them, spending a few nights in each other’s arms, they both agree that a long-term relationship between this inflexible alpha male and talkative, empathic dreamer would never work.