Storm Watch by Jill Shalvis

Title: Storm Watch
Author: Jill Shalvis
Publisher: Harlequin
Release Date: August 2009
Length: Novella
Buy Link: Here
Rating: 2 stars

The Blurb: Subject: Jason Mauer, National Guard.

Current status: Homeward bound.

Mission: Getting some R & R!

Obstacle: Lizzy Mann. Sexy blast from the past.

After battling a hurricane of catastrophic proportions, Jason needs some downtime—badly! But there's no rest for the heroic. During another deluge, Jason's savior skills are suddenly in demand…by his hot friend Lizzy.

She's fiercely independent. But that doesn't keep them from having incredible sex as they, ah, ride out the storm!

Jason knows relationships and duty don't mix. Still, he feels as if he's being swept away by a flash flood of desire for Lizzy.

The permanent kind…


The Truth: Well, they can't all be winners. And Storm Watch was well...not. The story starts out with potential. Jason Mauer is a National Guard who's a bit battered by life at the moment. He's spent pretty much all his life after high school in the military, in the middle of a lot of with nature's homemade disasters, hurricanes and floods in particular. On top of the sheer physical exhaustion that such a life would force on a body, Jason is also in a state of shell-shocked grief. Six weeks ago, his best friend went down for the count during a flood. And then on top of that, there's the wonder of what he's going to do with his life now.

Back to the government and good ol' Uncle Sam? Or civilian life, which he isn't sure he can even fit into anymore? His family would like answer b and Jason would just like an answer. But pushing that all to the back as the author does, we focus on the here and now. Jason's come home right in the middle of a surprise storm. And where he'd like to just sleep, eat and screw himself into a better state of mind, he can't because the storm brings along Lizzy Mann, a literal blast from the past.

Lizzy, like all blasts from the pasts, is all grown up and a bit of a hard ass. She was the classic shy flower to Jason's hot-yet-jerky Prince Charming when they were younger. There's less about Lizzy than one would expect. She's like a build up of descriptions rather than life. She's a nurse, she's super responsible, and a pseudo-mother to her sister, Cece. Cece is actually the reason Lizzy is there. Originally searching for Jason's brother, Dustin, Lizzy is in a tizzy to get to her very pregnant sister who's on the side of town that's beginning to resemble a mighty big lake.

Cece herself was in danger of being the classic bad girl sister. When their, Lizzy's and Cece's, parents died in a tragic accident when they were younger, Cece flew right into Wild Child Syndrome. She picked up bad guy after bad guy and after the last one gets her pregnant, she's trying to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, Cece has a bad habit of reverting back to that foolish young girl when she's frightened which is what has Lizzy in a surefire panic to get to her baby sister.

So when she finds Jason, not Dustin, at the house, she's mightily disappointed but her body is hot to trot. And this is where things start to derail. The story is a bare expanse of 24 hours, Lizzy is freaked the hell out enough to try and cross what sounds like a really bad storm (fifteen foot swells, two feet of rain) and she's stuck on hot Jason is. And don't think this is solely on her because Jason is just as stuck on little Lizzy all grown up. And let's add that Lizzy is one of those too-stubborn-to-live heroines and that's possibly worse than the too-stupid-to-live ones.

Despite acknowledging that Jason is a military man, that he's trained for this kind of stuff, she fights him through the entire story. I know this is a romance and I know we don't want a fretful, pea-hen heroine but this is just ridiculous. She tries to convince him she's fine on her own, he pretty much shoots that down. And her reasoning behind each of these things?

He was a major prick when he was a kid.

Hello! Guys in high school are not known for their sensitivity, get over it. And they're supposed to be twenty-nine-years old. Try twenty-two if that. And while I could choke this reasoning down, I could not, absolutely could not, understand what possessed Jason and Lizzy to pretty much make out the entire book. Seriously. Every break they have, despite the fact that there is a crazy storm that knocks down trees and makes boats a requirement to cross the street, they're on each other, flirting, teasing, and reminiscing.

Now, I understand in an abstract way what Ms. Shalvis was trying to do. 24 hours is not enough to get to know characters. So she ties in memories from the past that bring Jason and Lizzy's personalities to the surface and sheds more light on the tug of war that is their relationship. And I did enjoy those flashbacks. They showed the kind of writing that made me think fondly of Room Service. But under these circumstances? Leisurely walks through the past and long, drawn out make out scenes were completely and totally unneeded.

Squeezed between Lizzy and Jason's sorely lacking rescue attempt, Cece shines. Her youth shows in her panic and wish for her big sister, particularly when her baby decides that he or she wants to come out now. But Cece's house is pretty much flooded and there's no way – it seems – for her to get to the hospital without popping her kid out midway. Then Hunter Bryant, the neighbor that is never home but shows up when Cece screams in pain, shows up and Ms. Shalvis' writing shines again with him and Cece. Sad, to my mind, that the secondary characters completely usurped the main ones but usurp they did. Cece and Hunter don't exactly bicker but Hunter looks just like the kind of guy Cece wants nothing to do with but unlike her big sister, Cece knows Hunter's the best chance she and her unborn baby have to survive this storm in one piece.

Their adventure, honestly, saved this story. The pacing was still off, with enough time in between for Jason and Lizzy to do the bedroom boogie a couple times and for the ensuing emotional up and down fest afterward between them but once Hunter came into the picture, I was all about him and Cece.

And so, I present Storm Watch with a disappointed two stars and a fervent hope that whatever Ms. Shalvis does next goes back to the wonderfully entertaining writing of Room Service.