Don't Look Down

This the second book in the Sam and Rick series In this book, Sam is trying stay good and lives with her Billionaire boyfriend Rick. When Sam decides to start a security business, her first customer ends being murder. Sam feels guilt that the customer try to get help from the night before he got murder so she deicide find out who killed him. Meanwhile Rick's ex-wife, Patricia, asks Rick to help her buy a new house and tries to convince Rick to get back together. I love everything about this books expect the fact that at sometimes I think Sam just didn't stand to up Rick's ex-wife. Patricia is constantly dissing Sam even after Sam helps her out but still Sam helps out.

I love Sam and Rick together! They remind me a little of Eve and Roarke (J.D. Robb's romantic couple). Sam is a bit like the tough cop that Eve is except that she isn't all legal about stuff and her upbringing, though not great, is WAY better than Eve's. And Sam is more up on literature and booklearning-type stuff than Eve. Richard is a lot like Roarke in that he's rich and strong and very capable and very in love. Unlike Roarke, Rick never was poor or on the wrong side of the law. I loved reading this book. :)

This author never disappoints. The action and romance between the characters is sizzling. The book is funny and the plot flows. I look foreward to the next installment.

It has been three months since the events chronicled in FLIRTING WITH DANGER, and we open to Rick and Sam trying to settled into a settled relationship. Emotionally, Sam still has one foot out the door, terrified of commitment, whereas Rick is trying *not* to use the "L" word and scare Sam off. Sam also feels like Rick is trying to take over the security firm she is trying to start-her first legitimate venture-but all Rick is really trying to do in his take-charge kind of way is to get Sam so entrenched in his life and in a legit business that she won't want to leave it all behind for her former life as a cat burglar. All this relationship angst happens against the backdrop of Sam's first case-one that never officially gets off the ground because her client is killed before their first meeting. Sam is determined to find the killer, and Rick fears for her involvement, which leads them to make a little bet: Rick bets Sam that the police will solve the case without her help before she can. And the game is afoot. Further complicating matters is Patricia, Rick's viper of an ex-wife, trying to work her non-existent wiles on Rick, and Stoney, Sam's old fence and current office partner, trying to entice Sam to pull a job in Italy and furnishing their new office with questionable acquisitions. What I love about this series is that it's very much a work in progress with regard to Sam and Rick's relationship. Sometimes I get fed up with the immediacy of happily-ever-afters in books, those endless epilogues featuring the happily married couple billing and cooing over baby number umpteen. I particularly get tired of seeing this scenario in romantic suspense books, as most of the couples in this particular subgenre meet under stressful circumstances and decide they're in love with a gun pressed to their heads or some such thing that I find largely unrealistic. It's downright refreshing to read about the birth and struggle of a relationship. It feels more real to see Sam fight the temptation to go back to stealing and to see Rick worry about whether their life together is enough for Sam. Just like with other series, recurring characters (even the odious Patricia) are like old friends dropping by. I particularly enjoy the verbal sparring between Sam and Tom, Rick's lawyer and friend. I hope Ms. Enoch has many more of these books coming. DON'T LOOK DOWN combines the best bits of the IN DEATH series by J.D. Robb (the relationship development of the central figures from book to book) and the humor of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich with none of the elements (repetitive descriptions, TSTL moments) that annoy me. DON'T LOOK DOWN gets 5/5 stars and joins my keeper shelf.