Nanny Bodyguard is the fifth novel is the Bachelor Bodyguards series, but only the second novel in the series that I've read, and I'm happy to say it was somewhat of an improvement over the fourth book in the series and I give it 3 stars.

In this novel, it's Nikki Payne's chance to finally get out of her brother Cooper's newly opened branch of the Payne Protection Agency, and actually work in the field on Cooper's first official case, and whiles he's not at all happy about it, his buddy and new hire, Lars Ecklund was all for giving her a chance, although he has his own motives for wanting her positioned as the bodyguard nanny to a lawyer's new baby. In addition, he's attracted to the petite and feisty Nikki. As the other new hires, Dane, Manny, and Cole gather for a briefing on what will be their first case, all the former Marine buddies notice that Lars looks as though he's not slept in weeks, and he has good reason for that, although he's not yet shared that information with anyone but Dane. It seems that Lars' younger sister, Emilia, went missing during his last deployment, but in his last communication from her, he learned that she was pregnant, that the father of her child had left her and that she was planning to visit a lawyer, Myron Webber, to find out if the best thing for her unborn child would be to give it up for adoption. Guarding the son of that same lawyer is their new assignment, but it's not going to be their first attempt to breach the wealthy man's estate. He and Dane attempted the break-in the previous night and were lucky to survive the attempt, as the estate was already heavily guarded.

This novel really put the suspense in romantic suspense as after the first couple of chapters, the action really ramps into full gear, especially when Lars gets a look at the baby they're guarding--it's obvious that he's Emilia's son, but when Myron Webber is asked where the mother of the baby is, he's told that she died in childbirth, making this baby Lars' nephew and last living relative and utterly devastating this giant hunk of a man. Nikki too has noticed the resemblance and wonders if Lars fathered this child, while also fighting her own attraction to this huge hunk of a man.

While the plot was interesting in and of itself, the growing attraction between Nikki and Lars takes a back seat to Nikki's insistence that she'll never fall in love or marry, since she was well aware that her own father cheated on her mother. Nikki's constant battle is to have her brothers and the men working for them take her seriously as a bodyguard. The woman has skills and is constantly irritated by the men in her life trying to protect her and her insistence that she's perfectly capable of taking care of herself. What she also has a problem with is trusting any man, although it's clear that her brothers are happy having found the women of their dreams in previous novels in the series.

While I enjoyed the aforementioned plot and characters, I also found the writing very choppy and confusing. The points of view in this novel keep shifting, with no attempt made to help the reader by identifying who the new voice is. The scene changes and time-frame shifts also repeatedly change from one paragraph to the next without any indication that such a thing has happened when the author could simply and easily have inserted a trio of asterisks to alert the reader of the change in narration, location and time change. Since I was reading and ARC, I hope that this cognitive dissonance is noticed and corrected by the editors before this novel is released.

While I enjoyed the plot, characters, action, suspense and romance in this novel, the technical issues I've mentioned made it hard to follow and certainly detracted from my enjoyment of it, which is why I found myself unable to give it more than a 3-star rating. As I gave the previous novel in this series only 2 stars, there has been some improvement in the quality of the writing. and I hope the author continues to improve her skill set because she certainly knows how to write an edge-of-your-seat romantic suspense novel, and I'm hoping that Dane's upcoming novel continues to show even more improvement.

As previously stated, I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance reader copy of this book and received no compensation for doing so.

I just could not get into this book. It had action right from the beginning and was somehow boring

Oh, how I wanted to love this story and Nikki Payne's chance to working in the security instead of with them, and not to mention her chance to find her perfect mate and fall in love.
The plot was well thought out, it had twists and turns, it had a chance for the relationship development and the action, the suspense was escalating and the intensity high on both fronts.
I also liked the main characters, Nikki Payne and Lars Ecklund. Nikki had always lived in the shadow of her brothers. Her life dream had been to be included not to protected. She wanted to be as bad ass as her brothers were, and that desire seemed to have come to the point that she spent most of her time whining about her brothers and over reacting to every move possible to be considered as a protective one. She didn't want a relationship because she didn't trust a man wouldn't treat her like her dad treated her mom.
Lars, the big, tall, blond Viking was looking for revenge. During his last military deployment, his sister had disappeared, and the last known person to talk to her was the sleazy adoption lawyer, the Payne Protection's new client. To find out what happened to his sister went over his loyalty to his marine brothers, his willingness to find his sisters destiny the only thing driving him forward. I liked how Lars' vulnerability and dedication to his sister were shown in the story. He was a good man, yet a little lost at the moment with grief and worry.
There were many elements in the story that I liked and found entertaining. I kind of wish the first half of the story would have been revised since it was a merry-go-round of who can trust whom, who is professional enough to handle what, who is tough enough to do the job, who is the boss, and who could we trust again, who was brother to whom, and who was getting married to who, and it just went around and around for the first 50% of the book.
The story had several points of views, and there was no rhyme or reason of the timing of who gets to tell their point of view in the tale, or a clear mark when the storyteller changed. Stopping and going back to check what did I miss now, who is this person talking and why was there the change of point of view broke the natural flow of the story and sadly my enjoyment as well. Basically, the story needed a good dose of tough love editing, and since I read an eARC, not sure if that was fixed in the final copy.
Because there's so much potential in the story, both in the suspense and the romance side of it - with the plot, with the characters, the power struggles in the family, the visit with the previous characters in the series - but somehow it all was left under the clutter, and I found myself mostly frustrated instead of enjoying the read.
Yes, it is a good story with charming characters who come from a family with lots of love. They sincerely care for each other and want to protect each other and the world, they have a passion for what they do and it shows in their success. But unfortunately, most of the enjoyment in the story was impaired by technicalities.
~ Three Spoons

Nikkie works apart of the Payne Protection agency and wants to prove her worth but its hard when shes put on desk jobs and not in the field of work. It doesn't help that her brother keep finding new people to hire as body guards when shes has all the training. In comes the new guy Lars who does help in her in away to get what she wants to be an actual body guard but there seems to be some secrets he's hiding.

I loved this book, it was entertaining and mysterious. It was suspenseful questioning what happened and if Lar's sister and if she was even alive. I loved how observant Nikkie was with it came to things and went with her gut. I loved that she was the type of person to stand up for herself. I loved that there was plenty of twists throughout the book that surprised me. If you are looking for a book with more mystery not as much action then you'll want to check this book out I really enjoyed this book.

I'm rather disappointed in this book because it had a really good story which I felt was let down by the quality of the writing and the editing. The protagonists, Lars and Nikki, were well-drawn and likable and the plot was intriguing. I found myself interested in reading the next in the series to find out what happened with Lars' friend and his sister, but honestly I think I'll probably give it a miss because I found the writing really jarring.

I've read several modern Harlequins lately and this is really the first one where I've thought that it was just badly edited. Issues like complete scene and POV changes unexpectedly in the middle of chapters regularly left me blinking and going back to re-read a page, wondering if I'd missed something. There were a lot of sentences beginning with "And" or "But", sometimes several in a row; several instances where pronouns were used leaving me wondering which 'he' was being referred to in that particular case. These are all things that a competent editor should absolutely have picked up and helped the author to fix.

As I say, I'm disappointed. This is a really good romantic suspense let down by poor editing. I can't give it more than three stars.

A riveting case grabs our attention from the first page and doesn't let up the rest of the time! We see several familiar faces from previous books playing parts in this story. The main characters have a really compelling chemistry from the moment they set eyes on each other and I enjoyed going along for their story.

Former Marine Lars Ecklund has arrived home from his final tour of duty to find his sister missing. He knows where she said she was headed the last time he talked to her, so he goes and tries to find her, but keeps hitting brick walls. When his former teammate Cooper Payne comes into the picture as a way into the fortress of a house he's trying to get access to, Lars connects with him without giving him any details that might put him in a bad position.

Security Specialist Nikki Payne is really irritated that her overly protective brothers refuse to let her do the job in the family business that she wants to do. She doesn't need them holding her back and she really resents being treated like a weakling! When Lars comes on the scene and she realizes he's being secretive about something, she sets out to see what's going on. Will they be able to get to his sister before the whole situation blows up?

I did not enjoy this one as much as the first book with the older brother. There was just too much repetitiveness and way too much over protectiveness by the siblings that it made the heroine seem childish in a sense and the hero being so tall, did not work for me somehow - not to mention the lack of romance.

I am giving it 3 1\2 Stars out of 5
Since this is the first book I have read in the series I can only go off from what I read and not the series as a whole.
First off Nikki Payne is just too winy for my taste and her endless complaining about not being like her brothers, settling down with romance and marriage seem to fill the first half of the book to the point of turning this reader off. The attraction was completely sexual so when it turned into something more I couldn't get behind it.
The backstory made me think that Nikki already proved herself so the fact her brothers were over protective was a little took much to deal with.
The families 6th sense was a nice add to the story. The sex scenes were that. The story is easy to follow, readers will not get lost and the author keeps readers up to dated right away in the book so this can be read as a stand alone if they happened across the book in a store.
The flow of the story seemed a little choppy at times and the inner monologue dragged on a little too much. Action would have been better than Nikki and the giant Lars Ecklund endless inner thoughts. Trust me you will never forget how tall this guy is. It is mentioned non stop.
The author seemed to think readers needed to be remind about his unique looks. It wasn't needed and was a distraction.
Since this is the first book I have read by Lisa Childs I am not sure I will pick up another one of her books. Lisa Childs repeats herself way to many times in the book for me to enjoy it. I am smart enough to remember he is giant with amazing blue eyes and can't walk though a normal doorway because he is so big.
Thank you Netgalley for the advance Copy