"Attracted to Fire" by DiAnn Mills

Meghan Connors has worked hard to earn her way in the Secret Service. She receives a great honor when she's assigned to protect the Vice President's daughter, but leading the team is Ash Zinders, notorious for not wanting to work with female agents. There's not a lot of time for feuding, as Lindsay's self-destructive habits and outside threats against her life keep the stakes high.

Lindsay and the team are hidden away on a south Texas ranch while she detoxes from her latest addiction. Their location is supposed to be a secret, known only by those directly involved. Yet as the threat escalates and terror begins touching the ranch, the Vice President refuses to have his daughter moved. Who is in his ear convincing him to leave her there? How high up does the plot to kill Lindsay go? Learning to work together, Meghan and Ash must solve the puzzle before they lose their protectee or their very own lives.

Overall this was an enjoyable action adventure. I had a problem with the way Ash was portrayed at the beginning, as both a man of private faith and someone who could easily demean others, especially fellow female agents. Then his turning of opinion against women came not because he saw how competent Meghan was, but because he fell in love with her. I understand that his actions and words to shut people out had to do with his backstory and his own pain, but it was misplaced blame in the first place. It would have been redeeming if somewhere along the way he expressed his change of opinion in fully supporting female agents, but we never even found out if that was his changed view or not.

My only other complaint is that this book is a little sparse on real emotions. As the most glaring example, when a family member of one of the agents suddenly passes away, there is only dialog in the scene where that member reveals the news to other agents. No sharing of the grief, no talk of shocked faces around the room. It seemed incredibly flat. This was the first novel by DiAnn Mills that I've read, and I couldn't tell you if this is symptomatic of her regular writing style or not.

I might not be rushing out to buy the author's latest book, but I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to reading more, either. This one had a good plot, just not a lot of spark.