Grand Central Publishing – Carol's Notebook

It's been a long time since I've read any romantic suspense and I don't think I've read anything by Johansen before. Our main characters here are CIA agent Alisa Flynn and billionaire inventor Gabe Korgan. They both want to be in charge and while they bicker a lot, the attraction is clear. And that's one thing that sometimes annoys me about romantic suspense: we're in the grimy wilderness, desperate to stop the bad guy and save the teenage girls, but my mind just keeps going to sex. Really? As a couple, though, they're pretty good. They're both strong, a little short on trust, and long on independence. The bad guys are really awful human beings. The story is violent, with rapes and beatings, but not overly graphic. And while you know Alisa and Gabe will rescue the girls, even Sasha, Alisa's ward, the tension lies is how they'll do it and how much harm will be done to the girls...

First of all, I'm tired of these articles/essays pretending to be books. I picked up the audio of this one for a couple of reasons, but it was only like 2½ hours long. At 190-ish pages, that's really short. I don't know if the pages are an odd size or the print is huge, but it's a bit of a rip off for the price, hardback or audio, in my opinion. Onto the reasons I picked Dear Madam President up. From the blurb, I knew Jennifer Palmieri was the Director of Communications for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign who I did vote for, but it also assured me that it was a not solely about that campaign, that it was a book for all women regardless of politics. The reviews on Goodreads and Amazon are overwhelmingly positive. I read the opening on Margot's blog, Joyfully Retired, last week and it caught my attention. I have to say I was a little disappointed. Palmieri has...

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Chaos by Iris Johansen

Dear Madam President by Jennifer Palmieri