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Mission: Impassioned #5
Kiss or Kill
Special Agent Renee LeBlanc was deep undercover, close to exposing the leader of a terrorist cell. Then he showed up in the midst of her op. Mark Alexander, the only man who had ever upset Renee's uncanny instincts—a man who could blow her cover with a word. The desire between them was as strong as ever, but who was Mark really—ally or foe? Hero or villain? Lover…or assassin? These were decisions she had to make.
Heaven help her if she was wrong.
Heaven help her if she was wrong.
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 1, 2007
4 people are currently reading
28 people want to read
About the author
Lyn Stone
114 books39 followersLyn's foray into book-length fiction began in the early '90s, and she signed her first contract with Harlequin Historicals on Valentine's Day, 1996. "Flowers, candy, kisses, and a book sale, too! There will never be another day quite like that one!" she says.
"I always loved to write and even got excited about doing reports and term papers. I neglected other homework just to make that short story for English class as riveting as I possibly could."
Even so, she never really considered writing as a career until much later. Instead, Lyn studied art and worked in Europe while she visited the places she now writes about in her historicals. At that time, she was painting those sights and selling pictures.
While working at Boeing as an illustrator, she had the idea of trying to freelance book covers. Since she liked to paint faces and figures, romance novels seemed a logical choice. However, the field of cover art is highly competitive and she discovered it would take a great deal of research and preparation.
While studying the market on covers, she became firmly hooked on the contents of the books and decided to try writing instead. "Definitely one of my better decisions," she admits. She is still an avid romance reader and manages to read an average of four per week in addition to one or two books outside the genre.
Lyn feels a special affinity for England and Scotland with their wonderful castles and intriguing history. The American South and Southwest are her favorite settings for contemporary adventures.
She and her husband, Allen, both natives of Georgia, live in North Alabama near their two children and four grandchildren. "The family contributes to my research," Lyn says.
"They buy me books, clip articles, sketch costumes, and sometimes act out scenes. Even the grandchildren serve as inspiration for the younger characters."
"I always loved to write and even got excited about doing reports and term papers. I neglected other homework just to make that short story for English class as riveting as I possibly could."
Even so, she never really considered writing as a career until much later. Instead, Lyn studied art and worked in Europe while she visited the places she now writes about in her historicals. At that time, she was painting those sights and selling pictures.
While working at Boeing as an illustrator, she had the idea of trying to freelance book covers. Since she liked to paint faces and figures, romance novels seemed a logical choice. However, the field of cover art is highly competitive and she discovered it would take a great deal of research and preparation.
While studying the market on covers, she became firmly hooked on the contents of the books and decided to try writing instead. "Definitely one of my better decisions," she admits. She is still an avid romance reader and manages to read an average of four per week in addition to one or two books outside the genre.
Lyn feels a special affinity for England and Scotland with their wonderful castles and intriguing history. The American South and Southwest are her favorite settings for contemporary adventures.
She and her husband, Allen, both natives of Georgia, live in North Alabama near their two children and four grandchildren. "The family contributes to my research," Lyn says.
"They buy me books, clip articles, sketch costumes, and sometimes act out scenes. Even the grandchildren serve as inspiration for the younger characters."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 29, 2020
Mark Alexander has hunted the assassin who murdered his father in order to seek revenge and find out who ordered the hit. He tracks him to some criminal organization run by Deborah Martine, aka Cassandra DuMont. She's planning on imploding a building belonging to Corbett Lazlo, as she has a long-standing grudge against him.
Mark goes undercover to infiltrate the organization, where he runs smack dab into Renee Leblanc, a woman he met during training two years prior. She's undercover as well, trying to find out who ordered the kidnapping of a Senator's son. Mark and Renee are attracted to one another, but have to be careful that their differing objectives don't compromise their missions.
This is book five in a mini-series, and came with the usual issues that crop up when you haven't read any of the other books. There are lots of references to events that took place in other books, and characters acting on motives that were likely established elsewhere. For example, Deborah/Cassandra's grudge against Corbett Lazlo. There's one reference to what is motivating her, and that's it. I felt like I needed a little more than what I was given, because she was planning to detonate explosives inside a building!
Renee and Mark's motivations were well explored, and their relationship mostly worked for me, other than the Carol Ericson-style reliance on talking about food. But the big problem is that Renee and Mark don't get a single answer as to what they were seeking in the first place! Renee doesn't find out who ordered the kidnapping, and Mark doesn't find out who ordered his father's murder. That sort of thing really bothers me.
The suspense is mild and builds to an okay sequence in the building as Deborah/Cassandra makes her move before either Mark and Renee are ready for it. But then it continues on for another 40 pages from there, in which Mark gets shot at. Except we never find out who shot at him or why, and Deborah/Cassandra drops out of the story entirely, presumably to show up in the next book. The final stretch is just Renee pretty much begging Mark to admit he loves her, and him refusing, despite acknowledging to himself earlier in the book that he was. Huh? I can't stand it when heroes refuse to say they're in love for no real good reason, especially if they've already admitted it to themselves!
The book also had a stupid paranormal element in which Renee has the power of remote vision, where she can see things that other people see at the same time as them. It provided nothing to the story other than a convenient way for Renee to discover facts she wouldn't otherwise know. That, along with the attempted shooting of Mark that's never explained or resolved, only served to show how lazy the writing was.
Mark goes undercover to infiltrate the organization, where he runs smack dab into Renee Leblanc, a woman he met during training two years prior. She's undercover as well, trying to find out who ordered the kidnapping of a Senator's son. Mark and Renee are attracted to one another, but have to be careful that their differing objectives don't compromise their missions.
This is book five in a mini-series, and came with the usual issues that crop up when you haven't read any of the other books. There are lots of references to events that took place in other books, and characters acting on motives that were likely established elsewhere. For example, Deborah/Cassandra's grudge against Corbett Lazlo. There's one reference to what is motivating her, and that's it. I felt like I needed a little more than what I was given, because she was planning to detonate explosives inside a building!
Renee and Mark's motivations were well explored, and their relationship mostly worked for me, other than the Carol Ericson-style reliance on talking about food. But the big problem is that Renee and Mark don't get a single answer as to what they were seeking in the first place! Renee doesn't find out who ordered the kidnapping, and Mark doesn't find out who ordered his father's murder. That sort of thing really bothers me.
The suspense is mild and builds to an okay sequence in the building as Deborah/Cassandra makes her move before either Mark and Renee are ready for it. But then it continues on for another 40 pages from there, in which Mark gets shot at. Except we never find out who shot at him or why, and Deborah/Cassandra drops out of the story entirely, presumably to show up in the next book. The final stretch is just Renee pretty much begging Mark to admit he loves her, and him refusing, despite acknowledging to himself earlier in the book that he was. Huh? I can't stand it when heroes refuse to say they're in love for no real good reason, especially if they've already admitted it to themselves!
The book also had a stupid paranormal element in which Renee has the power of remote vision, where she can see things that other people see at the same time as them. It provided nothing to the story other than a convenient way for Renee to discover facts she wouldn't otherwise know. That, along with the attempted shooting of Mark that's never explained or resolved, only served to show how lazy the writing was.
September 13, 2009
Mark Alexander had been searching for his father's murderer for the past sixteen years. And he isn't about to pass on the opportunity to infiltrate the organization John Trip supposedly works for. Not even upon seeing a familiar face in the meeting. The question is, has she turned or is she there undercover?
Renee Leblanc met Mark at a mutual "training" two years ago, and hasn't been able to completely forget him ever since. As he enters the meeting room she's assailed by doubts. Has he turned? Should she expose him? But if she exposes him, what reason could she give?
As they're immediately ordered to work together, there would be ample opportunities to test their allegiance, but can they truly work together when they realize their individual operations somehow bleed together, and Mark's need for vengeance might just blow their cover wide open.
Meh. This was a rather average story. The characters were once again more bland than not, there didn't appear to be much personality there, absolutely no spark, and their "chemistry" was so forced it made my teeth ache.
There was another name change, the main she-villain went back to her surname from the first book - DuMont. And the added paranormal factor, instead of wowing the reader as was probably the author's intention, was a cheap trick, a Deus Ex Machina concoction that was laughable at best.
The only thing saving this book from getting 1-2 stars was the suspense. There was plenty of that going around, it was gripping and well-executed.
Now, there's only one book left in this miniseries, Kathleen Creighton's Lazlo's Last Stand. The stage is set (with the assassin and the sidekicks dead there are only Cassandra and his son left), everything has been set into motion, now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy (I sure hope so!) the final show, and finally get the answers to the questions that've been piling up since the beginning of this rather unfortunate miniseries.
It's finally time for the big man to reveal his cards and I can't hardly wait.
Renee Leblanc met Mark at a mutual "training" two years ago, and hasn't been able to completely forget him ever since. As he enters the meeting room she's assailed by doubts. Has he turned? Should she expose him? But if she exposes him, what reason could she give?
As they're immediately ordered to work together, there would be ample opportunities to test their allegiance, but can they truly work together when they realize their individual operations somehow bleed together, and Mark's need for vengeance might just blow their cover wide open.
Meh. This was a rather average story. The characters were once again more bland than not, there didn't appear to be much personality there, absolutely no spark, and their "chemistry" was so forced it made my teeth ache.
There was another name change, the main she-villain went back to her surname from the first book - DuMont. And the added paranormal factor, instead of wowing the reader as was probably the author's intention, was a cheap trick, a Deus Ex Machina concoction that was laughable at best.
The only thing saving this book from getting 1-2 stars was the suspense. There was plenty of that going around, it was gripping and well-executed.
Now, there's only one book left in this miniseries, Kathleen Creighton's Lazlo's Last Stand. The stage is set (with the assassin and the sidekicks dead there are only Cassandra and his son left), everything has been set into motion, now all we have to do is sit back and enjoy (I sure hope so!) the final show, and finally get the answers to the questions that've been piling up since the beginning of this rather unfortunate miniseries.
It's finally time for the big man to reveal his cards and I can't hardly wait.
October 19, 2010
Not just the best book I've ever read. Both Special Agent Renee LeBlanc and Mark Alexander are both undercover, but for two different reasons. Both must learn to trust the other if they want to make it out of this cover alive and with the information they are seeking, while not giving into the attraction that seems to be pulling them together. But when things get close to coming to an end will they put their jobs on the line to save the other? Wish it would of have a little more romance and not have been so focused on the undercover job. The plot was sorta hard for me to follow.
December 3, 2012
-interesting, i would like to know if what would happen to Deborah Martini and who is the son she's talking about
June 3, 2013
This fast moving read, pulled me in at the beginning and was hard to put down.It had suspense, romance, a little humor. I really liked it.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews