Kiss of the Blue Dragon (Silhouette Bombshell)

Rating:
Summary: Action meets Romance with a vengeance!
Review: Angel Baker moves through the pages of KISS OF THE BLUE DRAGON like a Salsa dancer on steroids. She's beautiful but also rough and tough in a futuristic Chicago. Angel's a ripped Retribution Specialist, a bounty hunter who doesn't capture her prey. She simply deals out justified revenge. And Angel's happy with her rough edges and dark streets until her mother is kidnapped and a rogue cop enters her life. Then everything changes. Sparks fly and Angel is thrust head first into a dark futuristic underworld that could easily mean her death. Only a writer like Julie Beard could stir up such a steaming caldron of action and romance.

Rating:
Summary: superb satirical futuristic romantic mystery
Review: By the twenty-second century laws have made criminal activity relatively profitable except for dealing with Certified Retribution Specialists. These experts are hired by victims or their families to bring justice to criminals. One of the best CRS in Chicago is Angel Baker.

However, Angel's latest assignment finds she is her own client when kidnappers abduct her zany sixty year old estranged mom Lola who is always in trouble for her fortune telling scams. Angel begins making inquiries that brings her into the middle of inquiries being made by Detective Riccuccio Marco into mob activities. As she wonders whether she should team up with the law enforcement hunk, even more pressing on her heart and mind is whether she should go organic and toss out her Humphrey Bogart robot.

This satirical futuristic romantic mystery (in some ways mindful of Cherry 3000) is an enjoyable tale that hooks readers from the moment Lola tells her daughter that she is in trouble and never lets up its bite until the final confrontation to free her. The story line takes no prisoners as it humorously assaults some of our modern day truisms by extending them to the extreme before nuking them as bogus. Angel is a terrific heroine while her counterpart (the organic one not the robotic one) is her perfect partner in the war on crime in the early twenty-second century.

Harriet Klausner


Rating:
Summary: Very good
Review: I was favorably impressed by Kiss of the Blue Dragon. I had read three previous Bombshell titles (Proof, Get Blondie, and Code Name Dove) and wasn't impressed by them at all. However, this second batch of Bombshell titles is really good. Alias was excellently written, Kiss of the Blue Dragon is a great read, and I've just started Urban Legend, which is very good so far.

In Kiss of the Blue Dragon, Angel Baker is a quasi-law enforcement officer in the year 2100. This book is vaguely similar to J.D. Robb's Eve Dallas series with air-cars, con artist fortune-telling scams, pleasure robots, homeless people living in a dangerous underground city, etc. However, Angel and the lead man Marco are not as well-fleshed out as Eve Dallas and Roarke.

Marco, the romantic lead, is a cop resembling a 1920's private investigator. Maybe that's why I didn't like him as much as I liked Jack in Alias, because I'm not that interested in the 1920's PI-type.

On the good side, the book is full of action, Angel totally kicks butt (no matter how large the opponent), her relationship with her mom and Mike is great, and I particularly liked the premise behind the little Chinese girls. Angel goes all out when innocents are at stake, and you have to admire her chutzpah in saving lives. Oh, and she's psychic too, so there's a tad of paranormal to go with the futuristic story.



Rating:
Summary: Kiss the Blues Goodbye with this book!
Review: Julie Beard's Kiss of the Blue Dragon is the perfect example of a kick-butt heroine with a softer side. Ms. Beard has penned an excellent story with clever narrative and sassy, sparkling dialogue. Angel Baker has a past that makes her oh, so human and explains why she's a Certified Retribution Specialist. Marco is perfect, a man who's not threatened by a real woman. I hope there will be more Angel Baker books from Julie Beard!

Rating:
Summary: Kiss the blues goodbye with this winner!
Review: This book was the first of the Bombshell books I'd read and the first of Julie Beard's contemporaries. (I'm a fan of her historicals.) This heroine really kicks! She is fresh and original, independent and strong without being masculine, ala Laura Croft. Angel has history to round out the character, which is typical of a Julie Beard character. The book is action filled and Beard writes with a vibrant, contemporary mainstream style. She never slips into the ordinary. I'm really looking reading more Angel stories!

Rating:
Summary: Uneven treatment
Review: This is a highly ambitous piece of action packed romantic suspense set in futuristic Chicago. Written in 1st person we get to know Angel Baker very well.
My issue is a bit of a broken record here and apologize- but 1st person is limiting as a novel type. We get to know Angel really well- but in a ROMANTIC novel I like seeing things from a 3rd person narrative view.
I knew very little about our hero by the end and had a tough time understanding how they were supposed to be a couple.
I knew all about Angel and her dysfunctional life with her mom, her foster parents and siblings and her Kung Fu master, even with her robotic boyfriend but the motivation and depth of character of the hero were not there. He is peripheral to the story.
The reason that the Janet Evanovich and JD Robb books that this series seeks to evoke work- are that they are well written narratives that let us get to know the characters by action and deed as well as dialog and introspection. Having occasional chapters focused on someone else rounds out a good romance. Having insight into how others view the world of the novel builds depth you do not get in a purely 1st person novel. I love Bridget Jones Diaries- but the content and humor elevate the material beyond the architecture of the book. Julie Beard does not achieve this here.