The Admiral's Bride (1999) (MIRA Books)Suzanne Brockmann
Grade: A
Genre: romantic suspense / adventure
Sex scenes: mild
Source: second-hand bookshop, Koh Tao
Tall, Dark and Dangerous: ... (7) The Admiral's Bride
Romance RBC 2014: An AAR Top 100 Romance 2000
Dr Zoe Lange has just been
presented with the biggest challenge of her career. A biological warfare
specialist, she’s more than familiar with going undercover. What’s different
about this mission is that she’ll be assisting Admiral Jake Robinson and they
need to recover six canisters of Triple X, a deadly nerve agent that has the
power to knock out entire cities. Admiral Jake Robinson is a legend – Zoe owes
her very existence to him. Over 20 years ago during the Vietnam War, Jake and
his elite team of Navy SEALs undertook missions that no one else dared:
rescuing whole camps of prisoners of war from enemy clutches and in particular,
a team of men who had been left for dead by their superiors in the depths of
the forest, including Zoe’s dad.
Still distraught over the death
of his wife Daisy three years ago and recovering from a recent life-threatening
injury, Jake finds himself in the curious position of having to prove his
mettle to his men who consider him too old for field work. When the mission
requires that Jake and Zoe become husband and wife in order to infiltrate the
compound where the canisters are being held, Jake is reluctant to commit
despite being fully aware that this relationship will be purely superficial. As
Zoe hides her true feelings, knowing that Jake is unwilling to reciprocate, their mission forces the pair into ever-closer quarters until it's impossible to deny the attraction between them ...
I found this gem while scouring
second-hand bookshops when I was in Koh Tao. I had quickly became addicted to
Suzanne Brockmann’s Troubleshooters
series, but it’s not the easiest of tasks getting my hands on any of her other
books and so I was determined to treasure this find. I enforced on myself a
strict rule of buying a single book and reading it before I bought another, and
this was perhaps my third book, read and enjoyed on the gorgeous sand of Sairee
Beach. I’m sorely tempted to hunt down the other books in this series, but even
eBay isn’t throwing up very good options.
This is another title where I’m
regretting my original RBC 2014 allocation as in retrospect, it wouldn’t be
very difficult to fill the ‘AAR Top 100 Romance 2000’ category. What The Admiral’s Bride is a great example
of, is a May-December romance. In a nutshell, this is where the hero and
heroine are respectively in the prime and later years of their life (hence,
May-December). Jake is 50 years old and throughout the book, is forced to show
his team that he’s fit enough to do the job. Zoe is 30 and has idolised Jake
all her life after he saved her father’s life. When this mission finally gives
her the opportunity to meet and work with Jake, Zoe finds herself not only
respecting him, but falling in love with the man. Zoe has no qualms at all
about the age gap or what people might think and on a number of occasions, she
reprimands Jake’s men for underestimating his abilities. She’s a great example
of what I love about Brockmann heroines: headstrong, smart and able to stand
her own ground.
As with a number of my other
favourite authors (Nora Roberts, Linda Howard, Lisa Kleypas, I could go on), I
do prefer Suzanne Brockmann’s older titles. There’s just something about these
books being contemporary for their time (yet not contemporary to 2014
standards) that makes them timeless, in a way that books written now, aren’t. The Admiral’s Bride closely rivals how
much I love Gone Too Far. It’s
difficult to pin down which I love more, but the latter does have the advantage
of an incredible amount of sexual tension spread over five other books in the
Troubleshooters series. Regardless, this novel represents some of the best of
Suzanne Brockmann and if you can get your hands on a copy, you'll see why.
Image courtesy of Book Depository.
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