Joyfully Retired

Up Close and Dangerous

by Linda Howard

Ballantine Books, 2007

Genre: Contemporary Romance

I should tell you up front that I’m a big fan of Linda Howard. She does romantic suspense so well that I physically feel the scary parts. And there are a lot of physical-feeling-parts in this one. The first few chapters describing the plane crash were equal to how I close my eyes at really scary movies. Of course, I couldn’t close my eyes on this paperback and read at the same time.

Let me summarize the plot in a few sentences. A private plane, flown by a ruggedly handsome pilot, has one passenger, a young, wealthy and beautiful widow. The plane crash lands in the tree line of the mountains but they are both alive. The challenge is to stay alive in the extremely low temperatures and then somehow get down the mountain in order to be seen and rescued. Although the two main characters, Bailey Wingate and Cam Justice, don’t like each other to begin with, they must become very close to share body heat, survive the cold, and then get themselves rescued. In addition, there is an underlying mystery as to why the plane crashed in the first place. 

This was an enjoyable “escape” book. It was fun to follow the creativity of the two characters as they used various tricks to keep themselves alive. And of course the romance developes nicely also. Note that this is not a book for children or adults who need to close their eyes during sex scenes. For everybody else who loves the genre, I’d recommend it.