Risk No Secrets [Mass Market Paperback]

The extremely touching love story in RISK NO SECRETS keeps you emotionally involved while the dangerous scenarios make the heart pound. For the fifth Black Ops, Inc. book, there is one perilous adventure after another where the uncertain outcomes up the anxiety level to extra high. Cindy Gerard expertly creates a comradeship amongst the Black Ops team members which is realistically credible and leaves the reader believing every single moment must have surely taken place.

When a van slows down near the school run by Sophie Baylor, she quickly realizes her suspicions about its occupants are founded when the girl talking with her own daughter is kidnapped. Although kidnappings for ransom occur much too regularly in El Salvador, she believes her daughter was the intended victim as the family of the other girl is very poor. Receiving no real help from the local authorities, guilt about the wrong abduction has Sophie calling upon a man from her past, someone she has not seen in twelve years yet has never forgotten.

Although Wyatt Savage has tried to keep any thoughts concerning Sophie from surfacing, recollections about the only woman to ever intensely affect him could never be completely repressed. When the Black Ops, Inc. member receives a frantic phone call from her requesting his help in rescuing a kidnapped girl, he readily agrees though knows it will be an emotional nightmare for him. With aid from other members of his elite covert team, Wyatt and Sophie try to discover the location of the missing girl while keeping their undeclared feelings under control. However, there are various forces working to keep them from being successful, ones where the results could be fatal.

Cindy Gerard is a premier writer of gripping romantic suspense stories. The plots of all the Black Ops, Inc. books are chillingly feasible, as world problems come to life with much convincingness. Ms. Gerard conveys the heroic lives of every member of this patriotic group with dramatic realism, and I always feel prouder of the many actual soldiers who defend America because of this observable dedication which I know they also possess. In RISK NO SECRETS, numerous incidents are frequently depicted with a sense of edginess yet still brimming with strong-willed determination. Then there are scenes where emotions are so passionately expressed that they also overpower the reader with their palpability. There were certainly more than a few instances where I was totally caught up in a happening, regardless of whether it is perilous or just emotional, and actually felt my breath catching as I anticipated how everything would finally play out as tension escalated. Ms. Gerard repeatedly creates likable characters and none has been more endearing than Wyatt and Sophie. As the tumultuous romance between these two tries to grow, there are countless decisions to be made and each one tugged at my own feelings as the thoughts of this couple are heartbreakingly told to readers. Their internal conflicts are particularly moving at times, especially when their unspoken desires desperately wanted to override the responses they felt must be followed. With pent-up longing having built for many years, any intimate encounters are fueled with enough heat to start ten blazingly hot fires. Wyatt may have southern manners with a charming personality, but he is also a courageously fearless fighter and is devoted to those for whom he deeply cares. As for Sophie, she proves just how brave she can be on several occasions, thus making my connection with her genuine. The many secondary characters are superbly portrayed, and the Black Ops members involved in this mission only become more memorable with each new revelation. There are additional stories to be told, and I am exceedingly grateful for every enthralling future book. RISK NO SECRETS intrigues on each compelling page while the romantic love story profoundly captivates.

Single Titles review

I have read all of Cindy Gerard's books. I like them all, some more than others. This one is near the top. 5 stars not because it was perfect but because I really liked it and it made me happy to read it. It pushed all the right buttons for me. Clean well thought out plot. Not overly wordy, overly descriptive etc. Some angst, which I personally like, but it doesn't overwhelm the story. While they do think about their feelings, the characters are not wallowing in their thoughts.

The characters are well drawn. You totally understand and believe that Wyatt has loved Sophie for 12 years. He is an honorable man who let her go to marry his best friend without saying anything when she made that choice. Sophie is also well drawn and believable. You can totally see her as a young woman choosing the wild exciting guy over the more quiet guy even though she knows they both love her. You can see that she has wondered over the years whether she made the right choice. There were a couple of spots where I would have liked more discussion/revelation. For example when she tells him she loves him, she doesn't tell him that she had those thoughts. I would have liked to see his reaction to that. Also she doesn't explain even though he basically asks why she didn't call him in the 2 years since her divorce. She doesn't even answer that in her head. So we don't know if she thought he'd forgotten her or what.

The kidnapping portion was well done. Ms. Gerard takes the less obvious choice to have the kidnapped child be not her daughter but her daughter's friend. This choice allows their relationship to develop more naturally as I never do buy that a mother of a kidnapped child would have a hot and heavy affair with a spec ops guy while her child is missing. I did guess the bad guy even though there were a few red herrings. But that was okay since this wasn't about if you could figure out the bad guy but the focus was on the romance where I like it as long as the rest makes sense.

There is plenty of male interaction with the BOI guys which is nice. It is mostly told through Wyatt's POV which I prefer over the female POV. There was a nice bit of gun toting, door knocking down spec ops stuff. It was well writte. It is important in these sorts of books that I can believe the guys could actually do what I'm being told they are doing. There are only 2 guys left to get their own books. I am looking forward to them. I hope Ms. Gerard either introduces more BOI guys or starts another spin off series as she did with this one.

The book, like many of her others, takes place in South America which is an under utilized setting for these sorts of books so I like to see that as well.

Ms. Gerard, in my opinion, is one of the top three writers in this genre along with Suzanne Brockmann and Marliss Melton. If you like those ladies, you will love Cindy Gerard as well.

This was a good, entertaining story but I wouldn't say it was great. Wyatt made for a compelling and sexy lead male- as part of the efficient and intimidating Black-Op Team - he is perfect for the job when his old "friend" (and almost lover from 12 years before) Sophie calls him in desperation after her daughter's best friend has been kidnapped in South America. Sophie's own child was the target and she is guilt-ridden. Upon arrival, Wyatt and Sophie are involved in an exciting airport shoot-out before they make it home to get the break-down of the kidnapping.

Basically, that's when I lost some interest. As sexy and exciting as Wyatt was... Sophie was the complete opposite. I found her character to be boring. She had very little personality. I was also annoyed at her... for someone who was supposed to be so wholesome, I was a little turned off that she picked Wyatt's best buddy Hugh over Wyatt because he was... more dashing? NOT that she loved him more? Come on. Then to spend almost the next decade with the wrong man even though he was a jerk. Then, like Wyatt said, she didn't even call Wyatt after Hugh left... she called him when she needed a favor because her "dashing" hubby Hugh wouldn't come to her aid.

The first intimacy scene was just sad to me. It was like Wyatt's dream come true (finally after all these years!!!) and for her it was like comfort or something. I didn't feel the sparks or the connection between the two people. It was like she needed support from her old friend Wyatt... the friend she passed up because he wasn't exciting enough. I felt like he STILL wasn't good enough for her but he was there and she needed him. I felt embarrassed to read it. They were embarrassed too... after that part the characters wouldn't even look at each other and it was awkward.

I also found it hard to believe that these two sexy mega-men would fight over this woman anyway. They met her in an adult education Spanish class. She was their teacher. On the first day they saw her and both started to flirt and that was it. I didn't see WHY they liked her or felt compelled to date her, compete for her hand, and for gosh sakes, in Wyatt's case- to be still pining after her over a decade later? Come on! She was THAT beautiful or what? Because it wasn't about her personality or her intelligence because they had barely even spoken to her when this all happened. I wanted this story to be a memory of Wyatt's... and to read his REAL romance with someone else that was worth his time.

At the point that the Black-op team brought the teacher ON AN ASSIGNMENT IN THE JUNGLE with them I was rolling my eyes. Usually it's the girl who is TSTL but this time it was becoming Wyatt. Maybe being emasculated by the one-who-got-away was distracting him.

Gerard is a promising writer and I've enjoyed some of her other work- but that wasn't the best example of her writing.

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