Lethal Affairs by Kim Baldwin and Xenia Alexiou

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books


Lethal Affairs introduces an adventure series featuring the Elite Operatives Organization. This is a top secret group based in Colorado that recruits children with special talents from all over the world and then raises them to be super agents with espionage and combat skills. The EOO is contracted by governments and other organizations to deal with situations that they legally can't solve. When they aren't on an assignment, the agents assume regular identities and mix in with the rest of the world.

Luka Madison has a reputation as a very skilled art restorer who travels the world working in exotic settings. That she is also the highly effective agent Domino is a secret kept by the EOO. It seems like a routine assignment when she is called in to lead a team in eliminating a drug lord, but mistakes are made and the situation isn't concluded with Domino's usual efficiency.

Hayley Ward is an upcoming newspaper reporter who is looking for that one big story that will make her career. When she receives a videotape of the assassination and a note about the EOO, she knows she's found it, but now she has two mysteries to solve. What is the EOO and who is feeding her the information to uncover its operations? 

Luka's new assignment is to find out what Hayley knows, how she knows it and if she needs to be eliminated to protect EOO. The story spins through murder, blackmail, corrupt officials and political intrigue. When the EOO decides to go after both Domino and Hayley, Domino finds herself not only trying to save their lives, but questioning her loyalties and priorities. 

Kim Baldwin has long been known by her fans for her adventure books. This series written with Xenia Alexiou introduces an edge and sense of intrigue that are new. Lethal Affairs fulfills its function of setting up the series very well. It gives enough details about the operation of EOO so that readers will understand what it is about, but there aren't enough details to cause this particular book to bog down. 

Set in sophisticated and exotic locales, Lethal Affairs shows the depth of research done by the writing team and their ability to portray scenes vividly. The action is fast paced, the bad guys are really bad, and the reader can be swept up in the ability of the agents to handle any situation.

Flight Risk by Kim Baldwin

Publisher:                 Bold Strokes Books


Flight Risk is standard Kim Baldwin fare - suspenseful, adventurous and romantic. 

Blayne Keller is living a very routine life as a travel agent until the day she accidentally witnesses a murder committed by a Mafia don. Then she has to start running, literally for her life. It becomes clear that the FBI and the Witness Protection Program are not going to be able to protect her after more than one attempt on her life is almost successful, including having a plane blown up around her. That brings in Agent Alexi Nikolos. She can keep Blayne alive to testify if she can just get her to cooperate. The first few days Alexi has to worry about outwitting Blayne's plans to escape as much as she does eluding the men who are pursuing them. Once Blayne accepts that Alexi truly is her best hope for survival, they can focus on that, but then there is another distraction. Blayne and Alexi are being drawn to each other magnetically, which is fine with Blayne, but Alexi is fighting against it as hard as she can. Because of past experience, Alexi cannot accept that she can successfully protect Blayne if they get involved in a relationship and she is determined to keep Blayne alive. As their travels take them across the US and Canada, then into Europe, both women become more frustrated with the impossibility of their situation and the hunters get closer all the time. Which race will be won - the one to keep Blayne safe to testify or the one to control their emotions? Maybe both, maybe neither.

Baldwin knows how to tell a story. Her detail is vivid and creates environments that live within the pages of the book. She's mastered the technique of having tension build in peaks and dips to a final resolution. The conclusion is a tad anticlimactic after the big confrontation, but acceptable, if predictable. Her characters are attractive and appealing and provide just the right amount of sexual tension. 

If anything, Baldwin's stories are becoming perhaps too formulaic. If you've read her other books, you already know the traits of her characters and the basic progression of the story. Flight Risk could just as easily be her first book Hunter's Pursuit.  It's difficult to argue with success however and Baldwin's formula is a success. When you buy one of her books, you may already know what you're getting, but you also know it's going to be well told and entertaining. As a reader, that makes a purchase worthwhile.

Breaking the Ice by Kim Baldwin

Publisher:              Bold Strokes Books

Karla Edwards suffers two staggering losses within a short time.  First, her lover Abby walks out of what Karla thought was a satisfying relationship and then her mother dies suddenly in her sleep.  The events leave Karla in a stupor wandering around her apartment in her pajamas unable to eat, bathe or communicate with the friends who are very worried about her.  As she is going through her mother's belongings, she makes a startling discovery.  Karla has a sister she never knew about.  When she discovers that she lives in Alaska, Karla takes a leave of absence from her job as an ER nurse in Atlanta and heads north to meet the only family she has left.

Bryson Faulkner is a bush pilot in Alaska just like her father before her.  She loves her isolated cabin, the surrounding wilderness and the excitement that her job brings her, but sometimes she does get lonely.  The problem is she can't imagine herself living anywhere but where she is and she also can't imagine another woman being willing to settle for her kind of life.  When she meets Karla, the sister of her best friend, that seems about to change, but Karla has a deeply wounded soul and finds it difficult to trust anyone.  When Karla volunteers to stay with her sister to help her with the pending delivery of her baby, it gives her a chance to get to know Bryson and to fall in love with Alaska.  What she has to decide is if she's willing to give up her job, friends and lifestyle in Atlanta for a harsh climate, wild creatures and a woman who might not come back sometime from a dangerous flight.

Kim Baldwin is skilled at taking a typical love story and turning it into something a little more.  She writes realistic situations with interesting characters.  That makes Breaking the Ice not just a romance, but also an adventure story.  The descriptions of Alaska and the conditions there are vivid.  The reader can feel the excitement of skimming over a glacier or the fear of wandering alone through a wilderness where the next thing around the bend might be a confrontation with a grizzly bear.  The tone draws the reader into the story and the pace allows the characters to develop gradually, giving the reader a chance to feel she "knows" these people.

Breaking the Ice is a good book to spend a few hours with when you want to be entertained.