MacKenzie's Promise is a Modern Romance by Catherine Spencer that adds intrigue and investigative police work to the usual couple-falling-in-love shenanigans. An attractive, lithe twenty-seven-year-old virgin, named Linda Carr (A terrible name for a romantic heroine), hires a retired, reclusive cop-turned-self-help-writer, MacKenzie 'Mac' 'Sully' Sullivan (Better), to find her niece, who has been kidnapped by the father. Linda's sister is barely mentioned, apparently too emotional to help find her own child. Mac, a once-divorced, tough alpha male who enjoys fine-dining and being cruel to women, doesn't do police work any longer, but he agrees to solve the case and risk his life for unspecified reasons. Perhaps he is so enamoured by lovely Linda's charms he can't refuse her. But one of Mac's rules is to never get involved with his clients, so he's rather shooting himself in the foot there.
'Can he keep her at arm's length?' asks the blurb. Wouldn't it be easier to just turn down the case? replies the reader. The tag-line is: 'Can he find the baby?' Seriously, that's the tag-line, as if a Mills & Boon reader cares what happens with the plot gimmick used to bring the romantic leads together. A superior tag-line might have been: 'Can he find what he's looking for? You see, because he thinks what he's looking for is a kidnapped baby, when what he really wants is love, with a beautiful woman. To hell with the baby.' Is tag-line-writer for Mills & Boon novels a real job?
While Mac and Linda easily track down the baby, they fall for each other, big time!, despite constant bickering, and overcome their personal issues to live happily ever after. While typically functional and moronic there are a few marked differences between MacKenzie's Promise and the standard fare. For starters, someone gets murdered at the end. Also, at the beginning, a baby is kidnapped. These are not incidents traditionally associated with trite Romance Fiction. In fact, this sounds like an inappropriate story involving child kidnapping and murder with a tactless love sub-plot clumsily shoe-horned in. If you were thinking that, you would be correct. Of course, the reader has nothing more to go on than the blurb when choosing this book from the neatly stacked shelves of similar titles. Of more significance than the story potentials, however, are the number of pages and the font size. MacKenzie's Promise is quite short, and this is as good as any a reason to choose it. Also, the gratuitous sex.
What MacKenzie's Promise does do is suggest a different way of telling a romance story. The search for the baby keeps the leads together, serves as a distraction, forces them apart when necessary and takes them to a myriad of exotic locations, where they often lunch. The problem with the romance strand is clear. As Linda points out, time and time again, should they really be enjoying a leisurely meal when there's a kidnapped baby to find? She makes a valid point. However, Mac's so hunky she quickly over-looks the matter. This only opens up a new issue. Man, what a shitty aunt and awful human being. She should die. Perhaps the trouble simply is that the baby kidnapping isn't treated with the seriousness the situation deserves. Maybe all a more talented writer needs to do is keep things light, but equally plot-orientated. Surely these two characters can have the same flirtatious conversations while crawling around in tunnels rather than over candlelight on a yacht?
'Can he keep her at arm's length?' asks the blurb. Wouldn't it be easier to just turn down the case? replies the reader. The tag-line is: 'Can he find the baby?' Seriously, that's the tag-line, as if a Mills & Boon reader cares what happens with the plot gimmick used to bring the romantic leads together. A superior tag-line might have been: 'Can he find what he's looking for? You see, because he thinks what he's looking for is a kidnapped baby, when what he really wants is love, with a beautiful woman. To hell with the baby.' Is tag-line-writer for Mills & Boon novels a real job?
While Mac and Linda easily track down the baby, they fall for each other, big time!, despite constant bickering, and overcome their personal issues to live happily ever after. While typically functional and moronic there are a few marked differences between MacKenzie's Promise and the standard fare. For starters, someone gets murdered at the end. Also, at the beginning, a baby is kidnapped. These are not incidents traditionally associated with trite Romance Fiction. In fact, this sounds like an inappropriate story involving child kidnapping and murder with a tactless love sub-plot clumsily shoe-horned in. If you were thinking that, you would be correct. Of course, the reader has nothing more to go on than the blurb when choosing this book from the neatly stacked shelves of similar titles. Of more significance than the story potentials, however, are the number of pages and the font size. MacKenzie's Promise is quite short, and this is as good as any a reason to choose it. Also, the gratuitous sex.
What MacKenzie's Promise does do is suggest a different way of telling a romance story. The search for the baby keeps the leads together, serves as a distraction, forces them apart when necessary and takes them to a myriad of exotic locations, where they often lunch. The problem with the romance strand is clear. As Linda points out, time and time again, should they really be enjoying a leisurely meal when there's a kidnapped baby to find? She makes a valid point. However, Mac's so hunky she quickly over-looks the matter. This only opens up a new issue. Man, what a shitty aunt and awful human being. She should die. Perhaps the trouble simply is that the baby kidnapping isn't treated with the seriousness the situation deserves. Maybe all a more talented writer needs to do is keep things light, but equally plot-orientated. Surely these two characters can have the same flirtatious conversations while crawling around in tunnels rather than over candlelight on a yacht?
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