FREEFALL

Author: JoAnn Ross ISBN: 0451223209 2/2008 CONTEMPORARY/THRILLER Publisher: NAL/SIGNET

Seeking refuge and determined to pull her life back together, Sabrina Swann returns to the sleepy Southern island of her childhood summers. The last person she expects to encounter there is Zach Tremayne, the boy who stole her heart when she was a girl. There's a haunted look in his eyes that makes her wonder what kind of man he's become. Zach Tremayne can't forget the horror he saw in his last battle in Afghanistan as a Navy SEAL. Now home on Swann Island, he's surprised to realize he can feel anything again, never mind the sudden sure of desire for this woman from his past. And when together they discover danger waiting in Swann's shadows, the woman who is desperate for peace and the man who has sworn off war will realize they are willing to do anything, risk everything, to protect a love neither saw coming...

RRAH's THOUGHTS AND PONDERINGS:

FREEFALL isn’t sure what it wants to be. Is it a Suzanne Brockmann-style SEAL action thriller? Is it a serial killer novel? A low country romance? Ross’ latest novel is all these things, which is probably why the first third or so is painfully episodic, moving to a different character after the tidy end of each chapter.

Ross is a good writer, but the literary and romance novel clichés pile up in this one. It comes to life best in the horrible scenes that led to post-traumatic stress disorder for the main characters, Sabrina Swann and Zach Tremayne.

FREEFALL is also a reunion romance. Sabrina spent summers at her grandmother’s tea plantation and grew up alongside Zach, who was just enough older and just enough of a gorgeous bad boy to have her devotion. Eleven years later, they’ve both grown up, but the attraction is still the same. There’s not much conflict in the romance, despite everything going on in the plot.

This new series continues in August with the release of CROSSFIRE. There’s plenty of room for an ongoing series based on the setup in FREEFALL.

Heather Hiestand