Loose and Easy (Steele Street, #9) in Alpha Heroes & Spitfire Heroines

Apr 15, 2008 Auntee rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2009_reads, romantic-suspense

Whew! I'm glad I stuck with this one. After a real nice, fast start, this one quickly got bogged down in so many characters (thought I might need a scorecard) and so much detail, and nothing was really happening that I was losing interest rapidly. Luckily I decided to stick with it, and I'm glad I did. By around page 100, things started to take off, and the book then became hard to put down.

"Loose and Easy" was about Johnny Ramos (Skeeter Bang's pal), who was a minor character in the previous "C Whew! I'm glad I stuck with this one. After a real nice, fast start, this one quickly got bogged down in so many characters (thought I might need a scorecard) and so much detail, and nothing was really happening that I was losing interest rapidly. Luckily I decided to stick with it, and I'm glad I did. By around page 100, things started to take off, and the book then became hard to put down.

"Loose and Easy" was about Johnny Ramos (Skeeter Bang's pal), who was a minor character in the previous "Crazy" books. Johnny's all grown up now (early to mid 20s, I'd say) and just back in Denver from his third tour of duty as a U.S. Army Ranger, and hoping to now join the SDF (special defense force) team. While having a drink one night at a local bar, he notices a sad little hooker limping down the street. She looks awfully familiar to him--could it possibly be Esme Alden, valedictorian of his high school graduating class, his former crush, the girl that got away? My-my, how the mighty have fallen...

Johnny's known Esme (or "Easy Alex" as he knicknamed her) since the seventh grade, and always had a certain fascination with her. (As she did with him.) And she almost, almost surrendered her virginity to him in the backseat of SDF operator Christian Hawkin's 1971 Dodge Challenger 'Roxanne'. But "little miss goody two shoes" a prostitute? No way...something's not right with this picture.

Turns out that Esme is not a prostitute, just pretending to be one, so she could 'recover' a stolen painting from a rather twisted German guy who she meets up with at his hotel room. Esme's really a P.I. specializing in art-recovery and the reason she's trying to recover valuable stolen artwork is for the money it will bring her. Esme needs the money badly to pay off a local bookie that her dad is in hock to up to his eyeballs. It seems dad's got a real bad gambling problem, and it's finally catching up to him. So if Esme can 'recover' the stolen (by the Nazis) painting (which is worth millions) and return it to it's rightful owner, she will be paid $82,000. Which just happens to be the amount owed to the bookie. If not, old dad is going to be fish food.

Well, Johnny follows her to the hotel room, witnesses the aftereffects of her dealings with the German (Esme leaves the thong wearing, dog collar clad German cuffed, hogtied, and leashed to the bedpost)and follows her out the window and down the street to her dad's office. He watches her (through the office's glass door) ditching her hooker's clothes and suddenly he's eighteen again, and he's remembering the backseat of that car...

So Johnny gets Esme to let him in, with the ruse that he needs to hire her father (a local P.I.). Johnny's still not sure what Esme is up to, but he plans to stick around and find out. And it's a good thing too, because suddenly a bunch of bad guys come out of the woodwork and start gunning for Esme. But Johnny sticks to her like glue. He's not going to let the only girl who's fascinated him for years get away again. He eventually finds out her story, convinces her to let him tag along to her meeting with the owner of the artwork, and then on to the meeting with the psycho bookie. Along the way, they have to dodge a lot of bad guys and bullets with their names on it (in Johnny's 1968 Mercury Cyclone named 'Solange'), and also figure out a way to free Esme's parents, who have been kidnapped by Mr. Bookie. That shouldn't be hard to do for a tough Ranger like Johnny, right? And of course, they rediscover those feelings that they had for each other all those years ago, and this time, they do something about it. And how. We're talkin' about some pretty smokin' hot scenes here. So, after all that plays out, and the bad guys are history, could there possibly be a future for former bad-boy Johnny and 'the smartest girl he ever knew', Esme?

I loved the romance between Johnny and Esme. Tara Janzen's heroes are so tough, such bad boys, but they are so sweet to the women they love. And when they fall, they fall hard. No hemmin' and hawin' about their feelings. And the heroines are quite accomplished in their own right, too. No shrinking violets here. Esme was a smart, tough little customer when she had to be, and worked quite well with Johnny. And their big sex scene was very hot, but you have to wait a long, long time for it to happen, but it was very, very worth it! And as a bonus there is a very, very sweet and satisfying HEA to read about.

This book also introduces a new, very intriguing character, who I'm dying to read more about--Esme's cousin and partner in her P.I. business, former military 'legend' Dax Killian. Whew, he had some special moments in this book, including a potential future romance with former gallery owner, Suzi Toussi. That is one pairing I hope to read more about.

There's not too much interaction with the other members of the SDF as there was in the previous book. Dylan, Christian and the rest of the gang do appear near the end of the book for a big meeting with General Grant, who lays a very upsetting assignment on the team. Don't know if this will be part of the plot of the next book in the series, but if it is it's sure to be exciting because it's going to bring back a lot of the original operators from the 'Crazy' series, and I certainly wouldn't mind reading about them again.

So, I urge any fans of this series to give this book a chance, because it has a very nice payoff. Don't get hung up on all the characters and trying to keep everything straight, just focus on Esme and Johnny, and everything will fall into place. I can't believe that at one point I wanted to put it down, and by the end, I was hoping there would be 50 more pages to read! This was a very worthy addition to the series--4 stars!
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Apr 04, 2008 jenjn79 rated it really liked it

Shelves: stars-4, 2009, published-2008, info-full, reviewed, genre-romance-suspense, series-steele-st

I'm very glad I stumbled onto Janzen's Steele Street series back when the first book came out. It's such a great romantic suspense series with a fantastic group of characters, fast-paced plots, and sweet, sexy romances. I've enjoyed all the books, this one included, and look forward to future installments.

Loose and Easy is the 9th book in the overall Steele Street series (3rd of the Loose subset) and though you may be able to read this book on its own and understand most of it, this series reall I'm very glad I stumbled onto Janzen's Steele Street series back when the first book came out. It's such a great romantic suspense series with a fantastic group of characters, fast-paced plots, and sweet, sexy romances. I've enjoyed all the books, this one included, and look forward to future installments.

Loose and Easy is the 9th book in the overall Steele Street series (3rd of the Loose subset) and though you may be able to read this book on its own and understand most of it, this series really needs to be read from the beginning. There are a lot of references to past details/storylines and the supporting characters are all recurring so you just won't understand those things if you jump in in the middle.

Johnny Ramos, who I think has been a minor character since back in book 1 is back in Denver after 3 tours of duty with the Rangers and now hopes to be assigned to the SDF group at Steele Street. He's only been home 2 weeks when he spots a bedraggled hooker walking down the street. He's surprised to realize it is Esme Alexandra Alden, or Easy Alex as he once nicknamed her in school because she was anything but easy. So he follows her. He can't imagine how prim, proper high school valedictorian Esme ended up hooking.

Only Esme, a P.I. specializing in art-recovery, is just in disguise so she can recover a stolen painting and return it to its rightful owner. Who will then pay her money she desperately needs to pay off her dad's gambling debt to a very bad man. Things start off okay...she gets the painting...but then Johnny Ramos - the boy she almost gave her virginity to years ago - pops back into her life. From there, it's down hill. The loan shark after dad is now trying to grab her as insurance and she can't seem to shake Johnny. Eventually she gives in and lets him help. Which isn't a hardship, really, because he's still as sexy as he was all those years ago. She's not really surprised to realize she still wants him. But first she has to make the deal with the loan shark and get her dad out of trouble. Then maybe she can see where things go with Johnny. If only it were that simple...

This book starts off really great. The first couple chapters really sucked me into the story. Esme is a real firecracker. So the book got off to a solid beginning. I thought the early-middle chapters got bogged down a bit with too much detail, too much rehashing and going around the same information. I ended up skim reading a little bit now and then when there wasn't anything important going on. But the book picks up again later.

I don't think there's as much action in this one as there has been in past books, which is probably another reason why the book seems slow at times. It's hard to imagine a book that covers maybe a 6 hour time span - short even for a Tara Janzen book - being slow, but it was. There seemed to be a lot of internal monologue paragraphs for the characters and not as much of the snappy dialogue Janzen usually dishes out. That, combined with the lesser amount of action, just seemed to make the book drag in the middle.

It did get better though. And it didn't keep me from enjoying the characters, storyline and romance. The hero and heroine were both great characters. Esme is definitely a spitfire. There's something about a girl with gun, and who knows how to handle it, that's really fun to read about (well, as long as she's a good "guy"). And the chemistry she had with Johnny was hot. I'm always a fan of reunion romances, of which this is one. I enjoyed reading about how the two were finally able to get together.

This book also introduces the fascinating character of Dax Killian, Esme's cousin. He had some great scenes in this book and I'm really looking forward to getting to read more about him...which sounds like it may be in the next book, Breaking Loose, from reading the short excerpt at the end of this one.

All in all, this is still a great series to read. And Janzen has planted a lot of seeds for more storylines. The last book made it seem like there's unfinished business yet for Red Dog, plus laid groundwork for a romance between Red Dog's brother and SDF contractor Cherie Hacker. Then this book introduced a really, really big upcoming storyline that will send many SDF agents reeling. And it also set up a potential romance between Dax and Suzi Toussi, another past minor character. I also think there may be some issues to come for Dylan and Skeeter, if one of Johnny's internal thoughts hold true. So yeah, it looks like there's still a lot to come for this great series. And I look forward to reading all of it! ...more

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