Men of Courage [Paperback]

In "Trapped" by Lori Foster, the too stupid to live heroine finally decides to let the too stupid to live hero know that she's in love with him and has been forever. The TSTL hero, of course, realizes that he's in love with her (even though he's never had any romantic feelings about her before). There is no heroic rescue anywhere in this story, and as far as I can tell, no one is trapped anywhere.

In "Buried" by Donna Kauffman, the TSTL heroine disregards the fact that the area near her home is unstable after an earthquake and goes to rescue her dog (Hello!! It's a dog!) from her house which may have crumbled. The hero (who had a crush on the heroine years ago when his brother was dating her and is still in love with her) realizes that she's on her way to try to find her dog, and goes after her. Of course, he gets hurt after rescuing the dog, and the heroine moves in with him to help him while he recovers. While she's living with him, she of course decides that she's in love with him, which wraps this boring little story up.

In "Stranded" by Jill Shalvis, the cold-hearted hero who has no time for love rescues the TSTL heroine from a flood after she finds herself trapped because she was too stupid to go in out of the heavy rain. They stay in the cellar of the hero's beautiful but dilapidated home (which he inherited from his grandparents, and hates) and since they have nothing better to do, they decide to have sex. By the time the storm is over, they've realized that life ain't so bad, the hero loves his house and they love each other.

I think I'll skip the AMERICAN HEROES miniseries from Harlequin Temptation if this is what I have to look forward to.

Second in this book is 'Buried' by Donna Kauffman. Another yawn here. Who's buried? No one is buried in this story! The entire story is about an earthquake in San Francisco and a rescue worker who supposedly saves a woman 'buried' in the rubble. She was? Apparently I missed that entire section because it wasn't in my copy. Her DOG is buried somewhere and they work together to find it. What I'm wondering is when rescue workers are assigned to find pets in the rubble during disasters when these things first happen? Aren't they sent to rescue people first??? Bury this one in the rubble...

And third is Jill Shalvis's 'Stranded'. The only story where the title actually fits the storyline. But then, they are 'stranded' in the basement, so, go figure. A storm drives two characters into the basement and they are stuck there until someone can find them. There solution? Sex. If we have sex, we'll be okay. Okay....brilliant.

Men of Courage? Where? And there is another book coming out, July 2003! Skip this and save your money. The blurb on the back hypes it out to be this exciting and dramatic collection of stories aimed at some of the everyday heroes in our country, the firefighters, rescue workers and doctors. What we get is a contrived waste of time and money. You can find more drama watching the news...

Tracy Talley~@