Reviewed by Vicki

TITLE: Lines of Sight 

SERIES: Covert Investigations #1

AUTHORS: Wolf Specter and Clara Coyle

PUBLISHER: Self Published

LENGTH: 418 pages

BLURB:

He’ll wear the suit and name the government told him to. But only because he has no choice. Russ Callahan may not be Seattle’s worst private investigator, but he’s likely its poorest. Since he blew the whistle on his last employer, the former military contractor has had to keep a low profile, living under an assumed identity. When a big case lands on his doorstep, he can’t refuse—unless he wants his next meal at a soup kitchen.

Accelera Pharmaceutical Labs suspects some tech is leaking clinical trial data to the competition. The case sounds simple enough: tail the geek, catch him in the act, and collect a much-needed paycheck.

A reclusive psychic faces the truth: people will die unless he finally uses his powers for good. Daniel Langston is far more than he appears. For starters, he’s not really a geneticist. Second, he can read minds. Things at Accelera aren’t as they seem, but how is a psychic supposed to prove it? Daniel needs Russ Callahan on his side to document the evidence. But he’s got to be careful.

He knows the truth about Accelera’s clinical trial, but no one can know howhe knows.

Once they join forces, the violence starts. Dan and Russ form a shaky alliance, only to realize there’s more threatening their partnership than just the lies they’ve told one another. Someone’s trying to kill them.

Aware of the plot on their lives, Dan works in the shadows, trying to stay a step ahead of the murderers and a step ahead of Russ. Because if he had to explain how he found out, that would ruin everything. And if that weren’t enough, he’s got a front row psychic ticket to a distracting truth: his partner is developing feelings for him.

Russ knows that he’s a target. He has to step lightly. So how come the only person he wants to trust is an emotionally volatile loner he knows nothing about?

Lines of Sight is a must-read thriller that blends slow-burn romance and supernatural intrigue with a tense conspiracy plot, all set in the vibrant backdrop of the Pacific Northwest.

REVIEW:

I saw the blurb for this book and since I’ve lived in and around Seattle my whole life I decided to give it a try. Especially when I saw the paranormal aspect, that was intriguing as well. There is a huge blurb with this book, so I’m not going to do much of a plot recap.

I have mixed feelings about this book, and had a hard time rating it. Dan and Russ are very interesting characters, and the plot was unique. That would normally rate a higher rating for me, but I had some issues with this one….

I read romance novels. At the moment I read mostly gay romance novels. I’ll read any type of plot, paranormal, contemporary, historical, suspense, drama, fluffy, funny, BDSM, urban fantasy, Sci-fi, etc, but there has to be an emotional and romantic relationship at some point during the book. And I prefer some sex. Not always, if the book is good enough I can let the sex go, I like explicit sex, but again, a good book will get me past that. The big issue I had with this book is it is not a romance. At all. I kept waiting and waiting, and it never happened. I saw from the blurb it was slow burn, but come on. I wasn’t even sure if Dan and Russ were gay. Their sexuality isn’t talked about or mentioned pretty much ever. They finally kiss at 70%, and had sex at 96%. Seriously, 96% of this book had no sex and no romance. I couldn’t even tell if they liked each other. I don’t have to have flowers and dates, but there has to be some emotional connection between the two main characters for me to like a book, and this just doesn’t have that. I don’t know if I misunderstood the blurb or just had the expectation that I was reading a romance novel since the book was submitted for review to a blog that reviews same sex romance books, but it was a noticeable lack of romance for me.

The other thing that set me off immediately with this book was the obsession with the weather. I think people have this big misconception that it is grey and rainy in Seattle all of the time, and mentioning the weather is a way to set the scene and remind us the story is in Seattle. But it does NOT rain all of the time in Seattle. I say that as I sit on my couch just north of Seattle and look at grey skies out my window, but it is December. This story takes place in August. The hottest and driest month here. Yet nearly every scene where the weather is mentioned in this book it is grey, raining or drizzling, and once had a thunder-storm. Those are sooooo rare up here. The sun is mentioned a couple of times, but way fewer than rain. That pulled me out of the story at the start, and just irritated me from then on. I know, it’s my issue, but it pisses me off.

The writing was okay. At times it was pretty good, but then there would be typos and odd sentences. This is also a really long book, I may have liked it better if it was a hundred pages shorter. There were a few times I questioned why something in the plot was happening, it didn’t always make sense to me. Even with one of the characters being psychic…

So I’m giving this book an average rating of three hearts. I would go lower because I was disappointed in this one, but it’s not the author’s fault that I was expecting a romance and didn’t get it. Nor is it their fault that I have issues with Seattle weather being misrepresented in books. I do think the plot was interesting, as were the characters, and I would have rated it higher if there had been romance and at least some implied sex sooner than 96%. If I had gotten that it would have been a four heart book. Without it a two heart book. So we’ll cut it in half and go with three hearts.

If you are looking for a long story with a creative plot and interesting characters, you might like this book. If you are looking for a story with romance and sex, skip it. There isn’t any.

RATING: 

BUY LINK:

Amazon