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The Unlikely Bodyguard
The Unlikely Bodyguard by Amy J. Fetzer released on Jan 23, 1998 is available now for purchase.
185 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
About the author
Amy J. Fetzer
93 books130 followersHi there. Thanks for stopping by!
I'll tell you right off that I don't like reading my own bios, let alone writing them. It's like tooting your own horn. But if you're here, then you want to know something about me. So how about I break some ‘writers have a glamorous life' myths first off.
Myth 1: Writers have always been writers.
Not me. I was a licensed cosmotologist for years, and didn't even put pen to paper until I was 30. (with an infant and 3 year old) It took me 3 years to write my first book, and while it taught me a lot, it was dreadful ! Got rejected 6 times flat out. I burned it in the back yard when I sold my 20 th book. I've kept the first pages to remind myself of how far I've come.
Myth 2: writers have a staff to take care of them and their homes while they write.
I wish! I don't have a maid, a cook, or anyone who works for me, except maybe Shelley, who maintains this site. Like most women out there, I do all the cooking, cleaning, bills, shopping, etc. Sometimes I can be seen driving the riding lawnmower over our 2 acres. That's not a complaint. I'm a Marine's wife, and my husband was gone a lot, so I had to do it. I'm the only female in a house of men, so I pretty much rule too. And as the daughter, wife, and now the mother of US Marines, believe me, I can give orders when need be.
Myth 3. Writers work when the muse hits them.
If I did, I'd never meet a deadline. Writing isn't about the muse coming to you; it's about unleashing bottled creativity and giving it freedom on paper. Every writer I know feels a deep internal need to tell their particular story and hope you're entertained. Writers HAVE to write. Yeah, sure, sometimes the creativity isn't moving like we want, but like everyone who faces some problem, I go to my friends and they come through in a punch. By the way, I work at my job from about 7 am till 4, sometimes later if it's going great and I don't want to stop. Weekends are for playing, projects or gardening. I actually love pulling weeds; it makes my mind drift to good places.
Myth 4: Writers get paid oodles of money.
Oodles?? If I did, I'd have a staff and a better-looking office. But I get to go to work in the worlds' sloppiest clothes.
Myth 5: Once a writer sells a book, they can sell anything else.
Want to see my rejection file? I could wallpaper a bathroom with it. To keep selling is the really hard part of this job. However, my idea of a great story isn't often blending with the editors. It's frustrating and often, it hurts, since the books writers create have, without a doubt, a piece of them inside. But then, if you can't take it, then this isn't the business for you.
My second book (#1 being the dreadful one I burned) My Timeswept Heart was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America, Golden Heart contest for unpublished works. I didn't win, but it got my work before my Kensington editor. It came out in '93 and I've sold over 30 since. With numerous rejections in between.
Right now, I'm writing books I've wanted to write for three years, Romantic Thrillers. Think Peacemaker or Chain Reaction with a little more romance in them. Lots of action and danger. After writing books in 5 sub genres of romance, (I get bored easily) this new one is the chance for me to use all this military knowledge I've stored up for years. I've fired weapons, rappelled, ridden in an Armored Personnel Carrier, and did some Scuba diving in the East China Sea. It hasn't been boring, and because I write, it never will be.
Now that my Sergeant Major husband is retired, and my sons are grown and towering over their mother, we get to stay in one place.
How average. I love it. When I feel the itch to move every 3 years, I just redecorate.
Well, its time for me to get back to work. Thanks for visiting. Take a look around the site, drop me a note, even read the first chapter of a new novel, if you like. It's out there for you, the reader. I wouldn't be loving my job if you weren't
I'll tell you right off that I don't like reading my own bios, let alone writing them. It's like tooting your own horn. But if you're here, then you want to know something about me. So how about I break some ‘writers have a glamorous life' myths first off.
Myth 1: Writers have always been writers.
Not me. I was a licensed cosmotologist for years, and didn't even put pen to paper until I was 30. (with an infant and 3 year old) It took me 3 years to write my first book, and while it taught me a lot, it was dreadful ! Got rejected 6 times flat out. I burned it in the back yard when I sold my 20 th book. I've kept the first pages to remind myself of how far I've come.
Myth 2: writers have a staff to take care of them and their homes while they write.
I wish! I don't have a maid, a cook, or anyone who works for me, except maybe Shelley, who maintains this site. Like most women out there, I do all the cooking, cleaning, bills, shopping, etc. Sometimes I can be seen driving the riding lawnmower over our 2 acres. That's not a complaint. I'm a Marine's wife, and my husband was gone a lot, so I had to do it. I'm the only female in a house of men, so I pretty much rule too. And as the daughter, wife, and now the mother of US Marines, believe me, I can give orders when need be.
Myth 3. Writers work when the muse hits them.
If I did, I'd never meet a deadline. Writing isn't about the muse coming to you; it's about unleashing bottled creativity and giving it freedom on paper. Every writer I know feels a deep internal need to tell their particular story and hope you're entertained. Writers HAVE to write. Yeah, sure, sometimes the creativity isn't moving like we want, but like everyone who faces some problem, I go to my friends and they come through in a punch. By the way, I work at my job from about 7 am till 4, sometimes later if it's going great and I don't want to stop. Weekends are for playing, projects or gardening. I actually love pulling weeds; it makes my mind drift to good places.
Myth 4: Writers get paid oodles of money.
Oodles?? If I did, I'd have a staff and a better-looking office. But I get to go to work in the worlds' sloppiest clothes.
Myth 5: Once a writer sells a book, they can sell anything else.
Want to see my rejection file? I could wallpaper a bathroom with it. To keep selling is the really hard part of this job. However, my idea of a great story isn't often blending with the editors. It's frustrating and often, it hurts, since the books writers create have, without a doubt, a piece of them inside. But then, if you can't take it, then this isn't the business for you.
My second book (#1 being the dreadful one I burned) My Timeswept Heart was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America, Golden Heart contest for unpublished works. I didn't win, but it got my work before my Kensington editor. It came out in '93 and I've sold over 30 since. With numerous rejections in between.
Right now, I'm writing books I've wanted to write for three years, Romantic Thrillers. Think Peacemaker or Chain Reaction with a little more romance in them. Lots of action and danger. After writing books in 5 sub genres of romance, (I get bored easily) this new one is the chance for me to use all this military knowledge I've stored up for years. I've fired weapons, rappelled, ridden in an Armored Personnel Carrier, and did some Scuba diving in the East China Sea. It hasn't been boring, and because I write, it never will be.
Now that my Sergeant Major husband is retired, and my sons are grown and towering over their mother, we get to stay in one place.
How average. I love it. When I feel the itch to move every 3 years, I just redecorate.
Well, its time for me to get back to work. Thanks for visiting. Take a look around the site, drop me a note, even read the first chapter of a new novel, if you like. It's out there for you, the reader. I wouldn't be loving my job if you weren't
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 28, 2021
Reviewed for THC Reviews
The Unlikely Bodyguard is a slightly older, stand-alone, contemporary, category romance that’s been on my TBR list for quite some time now. I can’t recall where I first learned about it, but I’m kind of a sucker for bodyguard romances, so that might be how it landed on my list. Calli is the head chef for a designer pastry company who’s spent most of her life being pegged as a goody-two-shoes. Her boss and fellow male chefs are too overprotective toward her, so when she’s sent on vacation, instead of going to the corporate villa in Mexico, she heads to New Mexico, looking for a little danger and adventure. Calli gets a bit more than she bargained for when she goes to a couple of seedy bars, attracting the wrong kind of attention. Twice she’s rescued by bad boy rancher, Gabe Griffin, who is known to the patrons of those establishments by his old street name, Angel. When her hotel room gets ransacked and she loses most of her cash and credit cards, Gabe suggests that she spend her vacation cooking at his ranch, an offer she accepts. The two grow closer, but little does Calli know that Gabe has actually been hired in his other capacity as a private investigator by her boss to look out for her welfare, protect her recipes from corporate sabotage, and recover an office memo she accidentally took which contains information that might upset her. When she learns the truth, it may put their budding romance in jeopardy.
As a small child, Calli was abandoned on the steps of an orphanage where she was raised by nuns. As a result of her upbringing, everyone around her, particularly the men in her life, think she’s an untouchable good girl who needs protecting. Tired of her overbearing boss and male co-workers hovering, she decides to kick up her heels on vacation. However, she’s nearly attacked on two different occasions and later almost kidnapped by a guy who’s trying to get his hands on her recipe journal, but each time Gabe seems to be there to rescue her. She’s very attracted to the dashing bad boy, so when her hotel room is tossed, she accepts his offer to stay at his ranch for the remainder of her vacation. Despite the rather primitive living conditions there, she takes joy in cooking for Gabe and his ranch hands, and gradually she starts to fall for Gabe who is good at projecting a bad boy veneer but underneath has a heart of gold. But when Calli discovers that Gabe has been working for her boss all along, she can’t help being upset by his deception, and when he doesn’t seem willing to fight for their relationship or love her in return, she leaves even though it breaks her heart. Initially I wasn’t too sure about Calli, because in the opening chapters, she seemed to border on TSTL in the way that she goes into bars, flirting with dangerous-looking men just for a thrill. A part of me understood where she was coming from, but it just didn’t seem like the best way to go about shedding her good-girl image. Later we learn that she can take care of herself rather handily, which might have been nice to know earlier so that I’d have perhaps had a better impression of her actions. Once she’s with Gabe on his ranch, I liked her a lot more for her sunny personality in spite of her background, for her forgiving nature, and for the way that she loves and cares for Gabe.
Gabe’s backstory is even more heartbreaking than Calli’s, and because of it, he’s a classic damaged hero. He spent a number of years on the streets, and when his life as a cat-burglar caught up to him, his victim, who happens to be Calli’s boss, generously offered him a second chance. He wisely took it and has since turned his life around, buying a small ranch that’s slowly starting to turn a profit, but to supplement his ranching activities, he works on the side as a private investigator. When Calli’s boss asks him to look out for her and to get back the company memo that he worries will really upset Calli, Gabe feels he owes the guy and can’t reveal his true purpose to her even when he worries it may ruin the good thing they’ve been building. Gabe has never truly known love in his life and doesn’t think he’s anywhere near good enough for a woman like Calli, so he never expected to genuinely fall for her or want more for the first time in his life. He doesn’t even know if he’s capable of loving someone in return, so when things go south between them when she learns the truth, he thinks he’s getting what he deserves. I love a good tortured hero and Gabe is definitely one of those. He almost lets the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers because he doesn’t feel worthy of her love. Given how heartbreaking his past is, though, it totally made sense. I think he senses a kindred spirit in Calli, so I’m glad that he finally came around and was able to accept her love and let himself be vulnerable with her.
Overall, The Unlikely Bodyguard was a pretty good story, but I felt like the setup for the plot was maybe a little thin. Perhaps the designer pastry business is more cutthroat than I would have imagined, but the lengths to which the villain goes to get Calli’s recipes seemed a little extreme. Also he ultimately didn’t have a lot of teeth, so while there’s some mild danger, the stakes aren’t super high. This being the case, what saved the story for me and earned it four stars are the characterizations and the romance. I thought that Calli and Gabe’s backstories, how those things still affect them in the present, and their actions/reactions were very well done, making perfect sense to me. Because of the similarities in their respective pasts, they relate to one another and fit together like two peas in a pod. At the same time, they’re opposites in personalities with Calli being the sunny, optimistic one, while Gabe is the tortured loner, so this, too, make them a perfect fit. Their romance develops naturally with Calli showing support toward Gabe even when he’s being rather grumpy and Gabe desperately wanting more but not feeling worthy. There’s also plenty of sexual tension from the moment they meet, leading all the way up to some deliciously steamy encounters. So in spite of a few plot weaknesses, I did find this to be an enjoyable read. The Unlikely Bodyguard was originally published in the Silhouette Desire romance line, but was later reprinted in the special Silhouette Marry Me, Cowboy series of reissued favorites.
The Unlikely Bodyguard is a slightly older, stand-alone, contemporary, category romance that’s been on my TBR list for quite some time now. I can’t recall where I first learned about it, but I’m kind of a sucker for bodyguard romances, so that might be how it landed on my list. Calli is the head chef for a designer pastry company who’s spent most of her life being pegged as a goody-two-shoes. Her boss and fellow male chefs are too overprotective toward her, so when she’s sent on vacation, instead of going to the corporate villa in Mexico, she heads to New Mexico, looking for a little danger and adventure. Calli gets a bit more than she bargained for when she goes to a couple of seedy bars, attracting the wrong kind of attention. Twice she’s rescued by bad boy rancher, Gabe Griffin, who is known to the patrons of those establishments by his old street name, Angel. When her hotel room gets ransacked and she loses most of her cash and credit cards, Gabe suggests that she spend her vacation cooking at his ranch, an offer she accepts. The two grow closer, but little does Calli know that Gabe has actually been hired in his other capacity as a private investigator by her boss to look out for her welfare, protect her recipes from corporate sabotage, and recover an office memo she accidentally took which contains information that might upset her. When she learns the truth, it may put their budding romance in jeopardy.
As a small child, Calli was abandoned on the steps of an orphanage where she was raised by nuns. As a result of her upbringing, everyone around her, particularly the men in her life, think she’s an untouchable good girl who needs protecting. Tired of her overbearing boss and male co-workers hovering, she decides to kick up her heels on vacation. However, she’s nearly attacked on two different occasions and later almost kidnapped by a guy who’s trying to get his hands on her recipe journal, but each time Gabe seems to be there to rescue her. She’s very attracted to the dashing bad boy, so when her hotel room is tossed, she accepts his offer to stay at his ranch for the remainder of her vacation. Despite the rather primitive living conditions there, she takes joy in cooking for Gabe and his ranch hands, and gradually she starts to fall for Gabe who is good at projecting a bad boy veneer but underneath has a heart of gold. But when Calli discovers that Gabe has been working for her boss all along, she can’t help being upset by his deception, and when he doesn’t seem willing to fight for their relationship or love her in return, she leaves even though it breaks her heart. Initially I wasn’t too sure about Calli, because in the opening chapters, she seemed to border on TSTL in the way that she goes into bars, flirting with dangerous-looking men just for a thrill. A part of me understood where she was coming from, but it just didn’t seem like the best way to go about shedding her good-girl image. Later we learn that she can take care of herself rather handily, which might have been nice to know earlier so that I’d have perhaps had a better impression of her actions. Once she’s with Gabe on his ranch, I liked her a lot more for her sunny personality in spite of her background, for her forgiving nature, and for the way that she loves and cares for Gabe.
Gabe’s backstory is even more heartbreaking than Calli’s, and because of it, he’s a classic damaged hero. He spent a number of years on the streets, and when his life as a cat-burglar caught up to him, his victim, who happens to be Calli’s boss, generously offered him a second chance. He wisely took it and has since turned his life around, buying a small ranch that’s slowly starting to turn a profit, but to supplement his ranching activities, he works on the side as a private investigator. When Calli’s boss asks him to look out for her and to get back the company memo that he worries will really upset Calli, Gabe feels he owes the guy and can’t reveal his true purpose to her even when he worries it may ruin the good thing they’ve been building. Gabe has never truly known love in his life and doesn’t think he’s anywhere near good enough for a woman like Calli, so he never expected to genuinely fall for her or want more for the first time in his life. He doesn’t even know if he’s capable of loving someone in return, so when things go south between them when she learns the truth, he thinks he’s getting what he deserves. I love a good tortured hero and Gabe is definitely one of those. He almost lets the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers because he doesn’t feel worthy of her love. Given how heartbreaking his past is, though, it totally made sense. I think he senses a kindred spirit in Calli, so I’m glad that he finally came around and was able to accept her love and let himself be vulnerable with her.
Overall, The Unlikely Bodyguard was a pretty good story, but I felt like the setup for the plot was maybe a little thin. Perhaps the designer pastry business is more cutthroat than I would have imagined, but the lengths to which the villain goes to get Calli’s recipes seemed a little extreme. Also he ultimately didn’t have a lot of teeth, so while there’s some mild danger, the stakes aren’t super high. This being the case, what saved the story for me and earned it four stars are the characterizations and the romance. I thought that Calli and Gabe’s backstories, how those things still affect them in the present, and their actions/reactions were very well done, making perfect sense to me. Because of the similarities in their respective pasts, they relate to one another and fit together like two peas in a pod. At the same time, they’re opposites in personalities with Calli being the sunny, optimistic one, while Gabe is the tortured loner, so this, too, make them a perfect fit. Their romance develops naturally with Calli showing support toward Gabe even when he’s being rather grumpy and Gabe desperately wanting more but not feeling worthy. There’s also plenty of sexual tension from the moment they meet, leading all the way up to some deliciously steamy encounters. So in spite of a few plot weaknesses, I did find this to be an enjoyable read. The Unlikely Bodyguard was originally published in the Silhouette Desire romance line, but was later reprinted in the special Silhouette Marry Me, Cowboy series of reissued favorites.
July 24, 2011
I felt the beginning you had to kind of power through. In fact, the beginning made me really dislike the main heroine for a while. She wanted to live on the edge because she was always a goody two shoes, but who's that stupid to get them selves caught in situation where they could die.
Anyway. Once she actually gets on the ranch, i totally love the book. It gets like 1000x better. i loved knowing about their backgrounds and seeing them trust each other. It also has super good diologue which this author's very good at.
It had a super cute ending.
I recommend it as a fast read.
Anyway. Once she actually gets on the ranch, i totally love the book. It gets like 1000x better. i loved knowing about their backgrounds and seeing them trust each other. It also has super good diologue which this author's very good at.
It had a super cute ending.
I recommend it as a fast read.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews