Every so often when touring the seedy alleys of a local library Bewildered Heart discovers a book that we know we shouldn't read, but cannot seem to draw away from, the musty, weathered pages only adding to the illicit thrill. Despite Mills & Boon's predilection for archetypal characters in archetypal situations an oddity will escape the publishing daddies that aspires to shatter any allusions an experienced reader may have grown to expect. And thus, placed innocently in amongst a row of Harlequin Blaze titles there was The Domino Effect, by Julie Elizabeth Leto. Domino Black is a spy as only politically clueless, paranoid people can imagine them for popular entertainment. She wears tight-fitting outfits, has cool gadgets and kills terrorists and third-world dictators for a shadowy organisation named The Shadow, a top-secret government agency that officially doesn't exist. Oh, book. Your readers have already abandoned any hope of you being pleasurable and disease-free, but what the hell, we are feeling frisky. Go on...
Her tough-talking handler sends Domino undercover into the suave and sophisticated Club Cicero, owned by the sexy and mysterious Luke Brasco, a man the government believes is about to sell classified documents to terrorists, revealing the names and locations of spies around the world. She must murder the sonofabitch for the sake of democracy. But wait! For this is the United States and they have a sworn policy to only kill morally-heinous evil-doers. They can't just go around shooting people who might have anti-American agendas. And so it is up to Domino to infiltrate the nightclub and investigate Luke, and by investigate we mean find the truth, and find the truth by whatever means necessary, and by whatever means necessary we mean have sex with him.
Will this enigmatic and emotionally-cold woman slowly warm to a man she may have to kill, before their growing bond forces her to reject her life's work and renege on the operation, only for it to turn out the guy is not the traitor, but someone close to him who she will have to kill, thus revealing her true self and destroying the love between the man and she, until an extremely unlikely plot contrivance brings them back together where they forget everything that had happened up until that point, leaving the poor and foolish reader with those memories and hoping for a plot contrivance so they too can forget about everything as well? Although a predictable ending is part of a romance novel's appeal, for anyone who yearns for change a thrilling plot running parallel to the romance sounds as if it could be an intriguing ploy. We know Luke is innocent and he and Domino will end up together, and yet we remain in the dark about who the real villain is. Might it be one of the other characters in the story? we wonder aloud to concerned onlookers on the bus. After all, besides Luke there are only three possible suspects and two of those are quickly ruled out. Looks as if we shall be reading until the end this time to find out what we already knew before we had begun.
Not only does The Domino Effect have a mystery complicating the emotional journey of the characters, it also offers an entirely redundant and inane secondary romance. For the first time in our Mills & Boon reading there were other characters engaging in adulterous acts, their sordid actions having no bearing on the main story. Club waitress and sexy bombshell Sienna Monroe wants Mikey something Italian, the muscular club security chief. The only thing standing in her way? Mikey is married and his wife is pregnant with twins! Well, that certainly is a stumbling block. Furthermore, Mikey loves his wife and doesn't want Sienna. Soon enough, of course, Mikey has had too much to drink and Sienna has put his penis in her mouth and there's really only one result from that situation. By the time our story has wound to an end Sienna is missing, Mikey is begging his wife for forgiveness and the twin babies are facing a sad future which will one day end in their own broken marriages and a lonesome vodka Christmas. Why did Leto deem it necessary to add these brief interludes? Was it because she guessed the traitor plot was too engaging and she wanted to infuriate her readers with lengthy and pointless asides? Is there a message buried in there, suggesting no matter how happily married a man is he will still cheat and voluptuous twenty-year-old coquettes always get what they want while the rest of us wonder why they wanted it in the first place? No one on the bus knew either.
Further removing The Domino Effect from your typical Harlequin fodder is the lead character. When she reveals her name is Domino, Luke replies, 'Like the game?' She says yes, but the reader should assume they were confusedly referring to Dominoes. Miss Black has committed hundreds of murders without showing signs of remorse or thought. She is unwaveringly loyal to imperialistic greed and she finds herself sexually attractive. “She'd always loved the way she looked,” the narrator tells us, as Domino grows more empathetic by the word. In her introductory notes, Leto tells her excited readers that she is, 'exploring the good girl/bad girl dichotomy in (her) heroines,' and, 'Domino is perhaps (her) edgiest heroine to date.'
Fair enough, but let us examine her comments. Domino has no virtuous qualities. She is edgy, perhaps, if you are willing to misuse the word, and she does test the reader's own moral code. Usually the insipid, anaemic beauties of romance fiction deserve their loving lot because everyone deserves a shot at happiness and some folk are easier to please than others. Domino, however, is a step too far. Now, no one worth speaking to considers Mr. & Mrs. Smith a good film, but the one lesson the viewer can learn from that error in judgement, besides never share your film's title with a Hitchcock movie, is that assassin is an unsuitable profession for a romantic lead. Domino proves the point. Even if we take the novel's hilarious political rhetoric at face value there is still the fact she displays no emotional connection to anyone throughout the book. She alienates every female character because of her beauty and curt manner and she alienates the reader for more than those two reasons. While she and Luke enjoy a rigorous and healthy sex life there are few romantic feelings shared between them. Domino can light a bunch of candles and she can even fall asleep on his elbow but their entire relationship is built around a façade. Luke's only personality trait appears to be his zero-tolerance toward criminal behaviour, thus making Domino an unlikely partner.
Furthermore, if the United States requires a top-secret unofficial branch of international and domestic espionage then what are the chances this outfit is committing acts of pure altruistic heroism? Why is Domino being asked to undertake such a simple assignment which a regular and existing law enforcement agency could have easily looked after, she constantly asks herself and the author? We never find out, a glaring omission in a book of glaring omissions. Domino is an arrogant, bitchy, self-obsessed, unrepentant mass murderer. She doesn't have a change of heart when she desires to give her work up for the love of a man. Oh no, it's only a logistical nightmare to continue killing for the government while under-taking an honest relationship. She doesn't change anything but outward appearances. She doesn't even learn a lesson. She is not deserving of a novel and she is not worth reading about. It is not edgy to expect a reader to want to see how she turns out. It is obnoxious. The Domino effect is mostly rage.
Her tough-talking handler sends Domino undercover into the suave and sophisticated Club Cicero, owned by the sexy and mysterious Luke Brasco, a man the government believes is about to sell classified documents to terrorists, revealing the names and locations of spies around the world. She must murder the sonofabitch for the sake of democracy. But wait! For this is the United States and they have a sworn policy to only kill morally-heinous evil-doers. They can't just go around shooting people who might have anti-American agendas. And so it is up to Domino to infiltrate the nightclub and investigate Luke, and by investigate we mean find the truth, and find the truth by whatever means necessary, and by whatever means necessary we mean have sex with him.
Will this enigmatic and emotionally-cold woman slowly warm to a man she may have to kill, before their growing bond forces her to reject her life's work and renege on the operation, only for it to turn out the guy is not the traitor, but someone close to him who she will have to kill, thus revealing her true self and destroying the love between the man and she, until an extremely unlikely plot contrivance brings them back together where they forget everything that had happened up until that point, leaving the poor and foolish reader with those memories and hoping for a plot contrivance so they too can forget about everything as well? Although a predictable ending is part of a romance novel's appeal, for anyone who yearns for change a thrilling plot running parallel to the romance sounds as if it could be an intriguing ploy. We know Luke is innocent and he and Domino will end up together, and yet we remain in the dark about who the real villain is. Might it be one of the other characters in the story? we wonder aloud to concerned onlookers on the bus. After all, besides Luke there are only three possible suspects and two of those are quickly ruled out. Looks as if we shall be reading until the end this time to find out what we already knew before we had begun.
Not only does The Domino Effect have a mystery complicating the emotional journey of the characters, it also offers an entirely redundant and inane secondary romance. For the first time in our Mills & Boon reading there were other characters engaging in adulterous acts, their sordid actions having no bearing on the main story. Club waitress and sexy bombshell Sienna Monroe wants Mikey something Italian, the muscular club security chief. The only thing standing in her way? Mikey is married and his wife is pregnant with twins! Well, that certainly is a stumbling block. Furthermore, Mikey loves his wife and doesn't want Sienna. Soon enough, of course, Mikey has had too much to drink and Sienna has put his penis in her mouth and there's really only one result from that situation. By the time our story has wound to an end Sienna is missing, Mikey is begging his wife for forgiveness and the twin babies are facing a sad future which will one day end in their own broken marriages and a lonesome vodka Christmas. Why did Leto deem it necessary to add these brief interludes? Was it because she guessed the traitor plot was too engaging and she wanted to infuriate her readers with lengthy and pointless asides? Is there a message buried in there, suggesting no matter how happily married a man is he will still cheat and voluptuous twenty-year-old coquettes always get what they want while the rest of us wonder why they wanted it in the first place? No one on the bus knew either.
Further removing The Domino Effect from your typical Harlequin fodder is the lead character. When she reveals her name is Domino, Luke replies, 'Like the game?' She says yes, but the reader should assume they were confusedly referring to Dominoes. Miss Black has committed hundreds of murders without showing signs of remorse or thought. She is unwaveringly loyal to imperialistic greed and she finds herself sexually attractive. “She'd always loved the way she looked,” the narrator tells us, as Domino grows more empathetic by the word. In her introductory notes, Leto tells her excited readers that she is, 'exploring the good girl/bad girl dichotomy in (her) heroines,' and, 'Domino is perhaps (her) edgiest heroine to date.'
Fair enough, but let us examine her comments. Domino has no virtuous qualities. She is edgy, perhaps, if you are willing to misuse the word, and she does test the reader's own moral code. Usually the insipid, anaemic beauties of romance fiction deserve their loving lot because everyone deserves a shot at happiness and some folk are easier to please than others. Domino, however, is a step too far. Now, no one worth speaking to considers Mr. & Mrs. Smith a good film, but the one lesson the viewer can learn from that error in judgement, besides never share your film's title with a Hitchcock movie, is that assassin is an unsuitable profession for a romantic lead. Domino proves the point. Even if we take the novel's hilarious political rhetoric at face value there is still the fact she displays no emotional connection to anyone throughout the book. She alienates every female character because of her beauty and curt manner and she alienates the reader for more than those two reasons. While she and Luke enjoy a rigorous and healthy sex life there are few romantic feelings shared between them. Domino can light a bunch of candles and she can even fall asleep on his elbow but their entire relationship is built around a façade. Luke's only personality trait appears to be his zero-tolerance toward criminal behaviour, thus making Domino an unlikely partner.
Furthermore, if the United States requires a top-secret unofficial branch of international and domestic espionage then what are the chances this outfit is committing acts of pure altruistic heroism? Why is Domino being asked to undertake such a simple assignment which a regular and existing law enforcement agency could have easily looked after, she constantly asks herself and the author? We never find out, a glaring omission in a book of glaring omissions. Domino is an arrogant, bitchy, self-obsessed, unrepentant mass murderer. She doesn't have a change of heart when she desires to give her work up for the love of a man. Oh no, it's only a logistical nightmare to continue killing for the government while under-taking an honest relationship. She doesn't change anything but outward appearances. She doesn't even learn a lesson. She is not deserving of a novel and she is not worth reading about. It is not edgy to expect a reader to want to see how she turns out. It is obnoxious. The Domino effect is mostly rage.
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