Point of Danger

Point of Danger (Triple Threat #1)
By: Irene Hannon

Seeing as though Hannon used to write mainly romance, it should come as no surprise that the romance vs suspense in this novel is a little lopsided to the former. I'm not a huge fan of romance novels so that downgraded my experience. To her credit, she did throw in some red herrings and presented a lot of possibilities for who the primary antagonist was so the ENTIRE book wasn't predictable. More on that later.

I tend to be harder on Christian fiction authors than I probably should because I do appreciate that they write clean books. But I just feel like a lot of authors are seemingly out of touch with realistic dialogue and characters. Point of Danger was not the exception.

Disclaimer: this review is a little harsh in a (mostly) sarcastic way. If you regularly like Irene Hannon's books then I don't think what bothered me would really bother you.

Alright, buckle up everyone.

This is going to seem nit-picky but if I'm going to claim unrealistic dialogue, I'm going to back it up. Skip this if you don't care. I have a big vocabulary and I know a lot of people with bigger vocabularies than my own and no one uses the words "retrieve" (we don't retrieve our purse, we just go get it!), "garb", "courtship", "entered my orbit" in their regular day-to-day exchanges. Other times she missed the mark: Eve says immediately after a kiss- "Epic, as the younger crowd would say..." Eve tells her sister, "I'll put on up-tempo music and groove to the beat while I paint." Eve was voted "Most Likely to Beat the Odds" in high school (is that a real superlative schools do??) Eve thinks that listening to her sisters banter "was always a hoot." Eve tells Brent that she's going to read that night and starts describing the book she's reading "I'm immersed in a heartwarming series set in a charming seaside community". Eve tells her sister while sitting in the sun at 7 pm "Didn't anyone ever tell you that ultraviolet radiation is harmful to your skin?" Brent thinks that he's not interested in romance until "a gorgeous redhead with a passion for commendable principles entered his orbit five days ago." Another character with a controlling husband who suggests they eat breakfast at Bob Evans is "dismayed" by this and thinks "He knew she didn't like heavy, calorie-laden breakfasts. Knew she was working hard to lose weight after her late-term miscarriage. And Bob Evans wasn't the place to follow a diet. Worse yet, he'd insist she join him in the high-carb, high-fat splurge he could afford, given the physical nature of his construction job."

Have you rolled your eyes yet?? Maybe the million references to her spinning classes will do it for you. Or that basically every paragraph uses a cliché. Or her description of the sun being "the golden orb". Or that someone leaves a fake bomb on her porch (which is a felony) but THEN the culprit UPS the ante by calling into her live radio show saying Eve had an affair with a married man. Now THERE'S a personal attack. It's getting SERIOUS now! "First a bomb, now a personal strike" I mean what's next?? Intentionally spilling their COFFEE on her SHIRT?!? Who knows where the strife will come from next.... Oh, and don't worry about Eve, though. She carries "pepper gel" with her wherever she goes. What the heck is pepper gel?? Literally every other human would use pepper SPRAY. Pepper gel makes me think she lathers her hands up with some peppery hand sanitizer and rubs it on her attackers face. Prove me wrong...

Let's also mention the texting that she uses in the book: "Was going 2 contact u" "She needs 2 b gone" I mean... really? For one... if people actually still text like this they need to ditch the Motorola brick phone and blow their minds with an iPhone. You would have to go out of your way to text those messages. It's not quicker, it's barely shorter, and it's not cool. Just type the words out bro.

Also questionable- (Sorry guys, looks like I have more to say than I thought I did) So someone leaves Eve a threatening note and they misspell the word "knife." I'm pretty sure everyone knows how to spell knife. It's literally the first word you learn how to spell when you learn that a k can be silent. I get Hannon wanted to present the note to seem different or to reveal a clue about the writer, but let's choose a little harder of a word for them to misspell. This was just comical. Sorry to spoil this one for you- the writer was NOT a kindergartner...

On a more serious note- the character who has a miscarriage defends to her husband about the necessity of her having a job by saying "sitting around here moping after the miscarriage wasn't healthy for me." 'Moping' is not the correct term here. It's called grieving. Having gone through a miscarriage myself, I would never have referred to my grieving time as "moping" around the house. Losing a child is devastating, especially considering it was mentioned this was a late-term miscarriage. I found this pretty insensitive and flippant though I'm sure she didn't intend it that way. Someone should have caught this in editing and corrected it.

As for the overall plot and characters. I didn't really know this was going to be a romantic suspense novel until about 2 pages in when Eve (who wasn't really likable because she has no flaws) is described with lush lashes, full lips, and a graceful neck and Brent (who had no personality) is described with coffee-colored eyes and powerful shoulders. Oh yeah. These two definitely fall in love. And that ends up being the primary focus of the book. Sure there is some mystery about who is threatening Eve and a decent twist happens, but considering the author does a crappy job of tying up the lose ends of that ordeal at the end, I'm pretty sure she only cared about the redhead and loner detective getting to Tuscany together and just added the rest in for fillers.

So. Yeah. If you haven't figured this out by my opinions yet... I don't think I was the target audience for this book. I respect what she does and appreciate authors who write clean, Christian books. But this one was just a little too out of touch for me. I strained my eyes from rolling them too much.

But if you read and like a lot of Christian fiction/romance novels, this will honestly probably be a good read for you, don't let my cynicism stand in your way!

**Received an ARC via NetGalley**