seriously romantic: wired by julie garwood

julie garwood is back with wired, the latest installment in the buchanan-renard novels. these are all romantic suspense, with one or both of the leads working with the fbi or other law enforcement agency. it's likely that liam scott, our hero, was introduced in an earlier installment, but while i did read earlier novels in this series, i didn't keep up with it so i can't remember meeting him before. though i do remember secondary characters noah clayborne and jordan buchanan as well as alex buchanan and his wife, regan, who doesn't appear but is mentioned.

our female lead is the brilliant and gorgeous allison trent. she's about to finish college and is ready to take the world by storm with some new computer security software, except she gets caught in the fbi's crosshairs when liam notices her at a seminar jordan hosts on computer programming and he realizes she could be the key in solving one of his cases.

like i said earlier, i've read julie garwood books before, both her historical romances and her contemporaries. and i just don't remember her narrative style to be so removed from the characters. here's the thing, i liked wired a lot. i really did. i liked allison and i liked liam. i liked the slow burn of their romance. the attraction that was clearly there from the moment they saw each other. but this book was also very strange because it was so descriptive. instead of showing, we're told a lot of the action. actually, we're told all of the action. and it's weird. i don't remember feeling this way before about a julie garwood book, so maybe she's trying something new. or maybe she elected to narrate her book in this manner because of who her characters were, because in some respects this kind of narrative style suited the characters to a t. but i'm sure people will find it off-putting. i'm not entirely sure where i fall on loving or hating it. mostly i noticed it, and it's worth remarking on.

personally what i'm looking for in a romance is characters i can root for to find a way to be together. and i enjoyed rooting for liam and allison. i liked their story a lot. when i finished the book i thought to myself, i love it. so, that's that. this worked for me.

**wired will publish on july 4, 2017. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of penguin's first to read program in exchange for my honest review.