Realms of the Raven

Review - Willing by Lucy Monroe
Kensington Brava - January 2006
ISBN: 0758208758

This trade paperback book by Lucy Monroe is the story of Josette McCall (Josi) who is the daughter of a Vietname vet who now spends his time doing freelance training of mercenaries at his school in Oregon. After losing her mother at a young age, Josi was raised solely by her father and taught all the skills he knew in his determination to never have his daughter at anyone's mercy or have her endure some of the horrors he saw through his tours of duty.

In her mid-twenties and after a serious injury, Josi has at last decided to leave the mercenary way of life and explore a career in computers. Her father had just taken on a partner in his business in the person of brooding and dark explosives expert Daniel Black Eagle (Nitro).

When her father's compound is torched and her father disappears from the hospital she had taken him to, Josi finds herself partnering up with Daniel in an effort to discover who had destroyed the merc school and just where her MIA father has disappeared to.

This partnership throws these two old aquaintances together where their assumed mutual dislike was actually covering a great deal of sexual attraction and chemistry between the beautiful merc woman and the modern day Sioux warrior. Their hot tempers and assumptions about their own natures and desires cause them no end of trouble as well as great pleasure during the mission they are both determined to complete.

---------------------------------------
I enjoyed this book quite a bit and it may well be my current favorite of Lucy's books. Josi was a very strong heroine and Daniel was a very caring but possessive alpha male. The sex scenes were a great balance of hot and detailed without being overly technical - I didn't need to get out the Barbie and Ken to visualize what was going on.

I really enjoyed Josi going through the effort to enjoy "girlie" things and her childlike delight in them at the same time Daniel is trying to convince himself that he's not a fit long-term companion for her.

I think I liked this second book in Lucy's Merc series more than the first book. The characters felt more 3 dimensional to me and I was able to really get into the head of Josi and Daniel.

The only downsides to me was my lingering issues with the concept of Daniel being able to make it as an architect without formal training. It's not as easy as having a great design sense, there's a lot of engineering knowledge required as well when building structures.

All in all - a definite buy and it will join my keeper shelf for future re-reading.