The Spy Who Saved Christmas is an amazing read. It is filled with suspense,
romance, genuine feelings, some laughter, and some heat. I loved the
characters. They started to pull on my heartstrings from the beginning of
the book.

Reid and Lara have to go through a whole bunch to get their kids back as
they also discover that their feelings have only grown and are continueing
to grow. Reid is continually surprised that Lara has been able to hold up
and keep up on the chase to get her kids back.

The characters and their feelings are genuine, though at times keep you
guessing. This book is full of surprises, action, and romance to keep you
guessing and turning the pages. This novel is hard to put down once you
start reading because you will want to know what is going to happen next.

Lara Jordan has always lived by the idea that one should always live life to the fullest. When she takes over her uncle’s butcher shop, she does things her way. She has a one-night stand with the amazingly hot baker next door never expecting that later that night his shop would explode burning down both their businesses and leaving her alone and pregnant with twins. Despite this, Lara believes her children are a blessing and she has done the best she can to rebuild her life and to move on even though she can’t seem to get over her lover. Imagine her shock when she goes out to dinner with a date and sees the man she thought was dead at a nearby table! She doesn’t know what to think and then the world explodes and life is no longer as she knows it.

Reid Graham has lived his life undercover. He doesn’t know another way to be. Then he meets Lara and his life seems to take on new meaning. He never planned to sleep with her although the instant attraction made it hard not to dream. When he had to leave, he felt some relief that he wasn’t going to have a messy good-bye to contend with. When he sees her at the restaurant, his only thought is to get out before she blows his cover. He is so close to infiltrating a terrorist organization and learning of their impending plan. Reid has no choice, but to take Lara with him after she follows him out of the restaurant and into a hail of gunfire. When he learns that he is a father and his twins have been kidnapped, his mission takes on a whole new meaning.

From the beginning of this book, I was pulled into the story of Lara and Reid. I felt for her being left alone and pregnant and admire her courage in making a life that works for her and her children. Ms. Marton’s vivid description of Lara’s emotions when she sees Reid again made me feel what she felt. At the same time, I could also understand how Reid felt when he had to leave her the first time and his reasons for keeping his identity a secret.

The suspenseful aspects of this book are also well done. We travel with Reid and Lara as they try to figure out who took the twins and how they are going to get them back. Despite her inexperience with this kind of thing, Lara’s insistence on going with Reid as he searches for the toddlers makes sense. What mother would willingly sit back and let someone else search for her children if she thought that she could help in anyway? Realistically speaking, the FBI and the police officers would not have let Lara join them on the search for the kids, but it works for the story and Reid’s job as a covert operative without official ties gives him more leeway.

I really enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. It was hard to put down until I knew what happened to the twins, how they were found and how Reid and Lara were going to work out their many differences. This is definitely one to add to the must-read pile!

Readers are launched like rockets straight into the action when past and present collide for commando Reid Graham and girl next door Lara Jordan. On loan to the FBI, Reid is trying to smash a homegrown terrorist ring when he runs into his past, in the form of Lara. Lara thought Reid had died in a fire, and had grieved and borne his twin sons in the past year. When bullets start flying, she and her children are placed in a safe house. Before they can reconcile their new situation, the children are kidnapped. Reid and Lara are on their own to find the twins, take down the terrorists and stay alive.

His hands were stained and rough-skinned. Large. They were the hands that testosterone hath made, she would think later, when she could think. His grip was all male and possessive. His fingers dug into the pale skin at her hips.

Something in her responded to him. Everything in her responded to him.

“You have that wild streak of your grandmother’s, Lara Jordan.” Her mother had always poured her disapproval on her every chance she got. “Mark my words, girls like you come to a bad end,” she used to say, then would add with a disgusted glare, “Every time.”

Lara had fought that parental prejudice all her life, only to realize now that her mother had been right. At the urging of the man who was kissing all common sense from her, she lay back on the wood-top table—flour dust be damned—and let him situate himself between her legs.

She was twenty two, alone in life for the first time, and she was about to lose her virginity to the most dangerous man she’d ever set eyes on. And she couldn’t claim for a moment that he’d seduced her. She was the one who’d strolled over to his bakery next door with a trumped up excuse, after hours.

“Here we are, the butcher and the baker,” she said just so there’d be something in the air beyond their panting.

He licked a fiery trail down her neck and stopped to press his hot lips against her racing pulse. “If a candlestick maker tries to interrupt, I won’t be hold responsible.”

They groaned together at the lame play on the nursery rhyme.

She didn’t know any candlestick makers, but she thought she might have found the candlestick.

Oh, my.

Her skirt came up. Her panties slipped away. His mouth scorched her nipples through the thin fabric of her bra. She ran her fingers over the corded muscles of his back. He was almost a full head taller than her and built like a brick oven. She was built like, well, like a butcher, but she felt feminine next to him, desirable in his hot gaze from the beginning.

When she’d decided to take over and run the butcher shop she’d inherited from her uncle, she considered that she might be getting in over her head. She had no idea how deep. But this was the life she wanted--adventure, challenge, and not the staid, average existence her mother had lived where every move was dictated by rules and more rules. She was going to be wild and free.

The man between her legs lifted his head, his dark gaze burning into hers. He said one word only, “Mine.”

“Yes,” she whispered as he pushed inside her with incredible restraint.

They’d known each other for a week.

Two years later…

The day had been going to hell in a hand basket even before his past decided to rise up and spit into his face. Undercover agent Reid Graham watched with mixed emotions as Lara Jordan walked in on the arms of a corporate stiff whose suit cost more than his monthly government salary.

Of all the restaurants in all the world, and she walks into this one. Tonight of all nights.

Lust and anger hit him in the gut in about equal doses. Lust, because the memory of their one night two years before was still his number one favorite fantasy. Anger because a single word from her could blow his cover and jeopardize an operation he’d invested years’ worth of sweat and blood in. One wrong word could easily get the both of them killed.

And not just them. He glanced around the crowded dining room, frowning at the people who could go from innocent bystander to victim in a blink of an eye.

…

Coming in Oct. 2010 from Harlequin Intrigue