Covert Seduction

Callie Croix
Carina Press
January 14, 2013
Description:

Navy SEAL Reid Galvin is back from hell and eager to find comfort in Becca Anderson’s arms. He knows he hurt her when he cut contact during his deployment, so when his call interrupts her date with another man, he has only himself to blame. But he can’t forget what she means to him—or the sexy email she sent him—and he won’t miss this chance to claim her as his own.

It’s been weeks since Becca heard from the man she thought she was involved with. So when Reid wants to take up where they left off as if nothing happened, she refuses. Then he rescues her from a first date gone very wrong, and she realizes she’s not quite ready to let him go.

Reid and Becca have a lot to talk about, but since she’s not listening, he’s going to have to regain her trust another way—by bringing her most erotic fantasies to life. Making her surrender to pleasure just might be his most important mission.

My Thoughts

Having read two of Ms. Croix’s works in the past and thoroughly enjoyed them (they had plot, sex and suspense, what’s not to enjoy?), I went into Covert Seduction with fairly high expectations and unfortunately, the book didn’t pay off.  Far too much (super hot and yummy) sex and not enough attention paid to the plot.

Becca is a programmer for an investment firm who just decoded a file for her co-worker David. She had a brief relationship with Reid (a SEAL) just before he went off on a mission to Afghanistan, but since then they’ve had almost no communication (she’s emailed him with almost no response back). Reid comes back the night Becca goes to a dinner with David as a friend and has made that abundently clear to David. Reid of course is jealous because he calls her and asks to meet up (he wants to talk because he’s got deep feelings for Becca despite his non-communication for 6+ weeks) to discuss what they might have together.

Two days later, they’re together and happily ever after.

The Good:
There were two sex scenes and they were incredibly hot, including one overlooking a party where Becca and Reid get it on against the glass where the party-goers can see them (not many do, but that’s not the point). Becca and Reid actually talk through their issues, or rather Becca’s issue with Reid over his non-communication previously. So, in that sense the romance develops nicely.

The Bad:
Unfortunately…the sex scenes are both high and low points for me. The first one just drags on and on and on…..literally only hours after someone drove Becca and David off the road into a canal where Reid conveniently shows up to save them from drowning. From the great beginning (the revelation that the file David brought to Becca was incredibly bad – someone was bilking her investment firm of billions) which set up what could have been a great suspense plotline, the mystery/suspense sort of just…petered out, or was put in as an afterthought. Reid and Becca didn’t need anything to draw them together. Reid was already planning on doing pretty much what he did (uber hot, alpha-male sex). The bad guys were easily handled and there was no real tension as to whether or not Reid and Becca would get hurt.

Summary:
Overall, I wasn’t overly impressed with this effort from Ms. Croix. Her prior books have been much better, with far more substantial plots and just as hot (and thankfully much shorter) sex scenes.

I’ll definitely keep checking out books by Ms. Croix, but unfortunately, Covert Seductions was a mediocre read for me.