Long and Short Reviews

Hot Contract by Jodi Henley
The Wild Rose Press, Crimson Rose
Contemporary, Suspense/Mystery
Full Length, Spicy
Review by Jasmine

When Jen Stalling, chief geologist on a new magma-based power plant known as the Pele Project witnesses the murder of a fellow scientist, Project officials don’t want the negative publicity of a murder investigation. “An accident,” they say. Jen knows better. So does her father, billionaire Art Stalling. But having pushed Jen away years ago, he can’t now reveal his interest without exposing her to danger. He hires DalCon, a Seattle-based security group to watch over her.

Keegan Dalfrey has his own problems. Four days ago, during a routine mission gone wrong, his brother was captured by South Pacific extremists. They want two million in ten days. Keegan can make that in nine days by neutralizing the threat to Jen. It’s an all or nothing gamble with his brother’s life in the balance. He never expected to fall in love.

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Jen Stalling is the geologist at a magna based power plant known as Pele Project. She unexpectedly witnesses the murder of her good friend and colleague, Terri Rodgers. The company that she works for does not want the bad publicity that a murder will bring to the company, so they write off the death as an accident. However, Jen knows that it was not an accident. And somebody else, somebody very evil also knows that Jen knows that it was not an accident. Thus her life becomes in danger since she has a killer looking to finish her off. Her father, wanting her safe, hires DalCon, a security team to keep her safe.

Keegan Dalfrey, one of the members of DalCon security, and the rest of his team, make their way to Jen’s to safe guard her. This job is extremely important to him since it will give him the amount of money he needs to rescue his brother from extremists who was captured during a rescue gone haywire. But as he protects this woman, secrets come to life that is not only detrimental to her life but also to the Stalling family. Will Keegan be able to protect Jen and ensure that her life is preserved?

Keegan and Jen’s story was interesting to read. The suspense and mystery was developed at a reasonable pace. It first hooked me with a tidbit of information before revealing more and more. The characters are human and I was able to relate to them on many levels. However, not being a geologist many times I was lost when it came to geology terms or jargon. Since it was not explained in the story it made reading a bit hard. Furthermore, I felt that this novel would have been much more compelling if this story was just about Keegan and Jen. (This novel included the story about Keegan’s sister, another DalCon operative, and her friend). Often not knowing their history and the suspense in the novel, it was hard to keep everything straight. Despite these issues, Hot Contract has a good storyline and interesting characters and was absolutely worth my time to read!