Sweet Talk by Julie Garwood ~~

Review provided by Netgalley.com

Hardcover: 368 pages

Publisher: Dutton Adult (August 7, 2012)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0525952861

When FBI agent Grayson Kincaid first encounters Olivia MacKenzie, she makes quite an impression. The beautiful, tough, young attorney has stumbled into the middle of an FBI sting operation and has reduced it to chaos. Months of surveillance and careful planning down the drain, Kincaid's partner is furious and lets Olivia know that she's ticked off the wrong guy. After all, he's FBI.Olivia isn?t intimidated by his partner's bullying because she's something even scarier...she's IRS.And working for the IRS isn?t for the faint of heart. She's on the trail of an elaborate Ponzi scheme, one that threatens to ruin the lives of naive and unsuspecting victims, and one she has personal reasons to be angry about. But after she asks questions of the wrong people, her life is suddenly endangered. She's accustomed to fighting for the underdog but being vulnerable herself is a very different story. Smart enough to know when to call for reinforcements, she contacts Grayson Kincaid.Together they make an excellent team to fight corruption but Olivia is also fighting the immediate and intense attraction she feels for Agent Kincaid, and that may be a battle she is bound to lose.

    So, I'm going w/ something a little bit off beat for this review...anyone who knows me knows I have a MAD, BAD love for Julie Garwood.  It's terrible, I tell ya'.  I could so go Misery on this woman!  So it's with that in mind that I pick up her books ~ I expect them all to be perfection.  I build them up in my head all year (she only writes ONE a year, people!!) and by the time I finally get my hands on it, I'm slobbering for it.  So we all know this isn't good, right?  It's almost impossible to meet these expectations...but I'm going to tell you, Ms. Garwood comes damn close. 

     I really like Olivia, and the way we're introduced to her & her band of merry friends, the "Pips", who have all been in the hospital together for some time undergoing treatment, is one of the ways Ms. Garwood has of endearing us to her characters.  It's how she makes us understand their quirks and oddities that we see so much when she meets her hero.  I love that we see this in this Sweet Talk!!  I love that Olivia is perfect for Grayson...what I wasn't so sweet on was I felt like that story itself wasn't fleshed out enough.  But how much do I want to complain, lol?  I love Ms. Garwood for her romances, her quirky characters and for the funny, often off beat dialogue, not for the tightness of the suspense in her books, or for the sense the ponzi scheme Olivia's father is running makes.

     I'm pleased with the face time I got w/ my characters...I loved the supporting characters, and I'm fairly certain we'll see more of those we met in this book.  I'm a happy Julie Garwood fan!!  Of course, I'd be happier if she'd write FASTER, but all in all, Sweet Talk totally delivered!