Flirting With Disaster by Jane Graves is a romantic suspense book with a second chancey storyline. The couple, Dave and Lisa, knew each other in high school and were attracted, but never got together.
It's been eleven years since they saw each other. Dave has been married and widowed. Lisa had been working and traveling. They have not seen or heard from each other in all of that time. Lisa calls one night out of the blue and says she needs help. Dave rushes to her rescue in Mexico.
The story involves counterfeit drug trafficking, murder, gangs, crooked cops and more. It's an entertaining book with lots of action as well as some hot sexy times. It made me want to read the others in the series, but totally stood on its own without making me feel lost.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review.

Loved this fast paced romantic suspense that is a reissue of a book originally published in 2003, The DeMarco's are a family of dedicated law enforcement agents and this is Dave DeMarco's story. He receives a call from someone he once knew in high school, Lisa Merrick. Lisa is in trouble trapped deep in the wilds of Mexico. How can he say no to helping her? They had a connection in high school that neither pursued. That connection and intense attraction is still there and worth going after. If they can just stay alive and get home!

This was a very enjoyable read and definitely a book I recommend.

Another great book in this series by Jane Graves. This is Dave and Lisa’s story. They went to high school together and he promised her he would be there for her. Will he be....

Flirting with Disaster is part of the DeMarco Family series. It is a stand alone book,b it I recommend reading the entire series to fully appreciate the characters. It is a wonderful romantic suspense story. Jane Graves is an excellent writer. I loved reading Lisa and Dave’s story.

Flirting with Disaster by Jane Graves
He was the man she couldn’t have…she was the woman he couldn’t forget
On a humanitarian mission to fly doctors to a remote village in Mexico, pilot Lisa Merrick discovers something sinister lurking behind the organization in charge. Her plane is sabotaged, leaving her trapped in the Mexican wilderness with a price on her head and no way out. Injured and desperate, she contacts the one man she knows will help her: Dave DeMarco, a tough but compassionate Texas cop with whom she was once wildly in love.
Dave DeMarco is stunned when a woman from his past calls him late one night with an incredible story of smuggling, sabotage and attempted murder. Soon, though, his mission to rescue Lisa becomes a struggle for survival against an enemy who wants them both dead. When the danger they face clashes with the passion that still burns between them, Dave vows to protect the woman he never stopped loving – and keep her in his life forever.
This is Lisa Merrick and Dave DeMarco's story.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John and Alex gauging his reaction, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away. After all this time, he was astonished to see Lisa’s face and even more astonished that she looked nearly the same as she had in high school—strong features, sleek, dark hair, and searing green eyes that radiated raw passion. In the dark of night sometimes he still thought about her, and when he did, this was the face he saw.
Beside Lisa’s photo was one of a forty-something man, Dr. Adam Decker, who was with her at the time the plane went down. Then the report quoted Dr. Robert Douglas, who was the administrator of an organization that flew doctors into a remote area of Mexico to provide health care at a free clinic. He told reporters that on a volunteer mission, Lisa took off near the town of Santa Rios yesterday evening, then crashed into a river. They didn’t know the cause of the accident. There was speculation that the bodies might never be recovered.
“So Lisa Merrick became a pilot for a humanitarian organization?” John said. Can you believe that?”
It didn’t matter that she was a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, who apparently had nothing but a dead-end life ahead of her. All that mattered was that she’d wanted out of her situation. She’d wanted desperately to be a pilot, and it looked as if she’d accomplished that. She’d yanked herself up out of that quagmire loosely referred to as a family, gone after what she wanted, and gotten it. He felt a rush of admiration for what she’d accomplished. She’d lived her dream.
And now she was dead.
“Hey, Dave!” John said. “Is that who I think it is?”
Dave turned his gaze back to the television. A cable news anchor was saying something about a plane crash. Something about the pilot being killed.
Then a photo flashed on the screen.
Dave froze, feeling as if the blood had thickened in his veins, slowing to a crawl, making him unable to move a muscle. Stabbed by recognition, long-buried emotion burst to the surface, and only by swallowing hard and grasping the edge of the table with tense fingers was he able to keep his face impassive.
“That’s her, isn’t it?” John asked. “Lisa Merrick?”
I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book."
Flirting with Disaster by Jane Graves is a 4 star book.
Jane's Books with Tule:
I Got You Babe
The DeMarco Family
Wild at Heart
The DeMarco Family
Flirting with Disaster
The DeMarco Family
Light My Fire
The DeMarco Family

I’ve been absolutely loving the De Marco Family series and book three, Flirting With Disaster was just as good as the first two. Dave De Marco is the star of this book. A respected police officer and all round good guy, Dave is hiding a secret - he’s loved Lisa Merrick for the past eleven years despite having married his longtime girlfriend Carla just weeks after first making that discovery.
Lisa has had to be tough and focused to achieve her goal of becoming a pilot. She’s had the worst sort of childhood and has succeeded in her career despite that, but as this story opens Lisa finds herself in a heap of trouble with Dave about her only chance of getting out of it.
The suspense ramps up again and again as this story progresses. Both Dave and Lisa face apparently insurmountable challenges including threats to their lives making this book a real page turner. The emotional journey is just as compelling and while it will come as no surprise to learn that Dave and Lisa do eventually find their happy ever after their journey made for entertaining reading.

They shared one kiss in high school, but police officer Dave DeMarco never forgot Lisa Merrick. So, when Dave got a call from Lisa saying she was in trouble and needed his help, Dave jumped on the next plane to a remote town in Mexico to help her.

Lisa was living her dream of being a pilot with her own private plane. She flew doctors into Mexico so they could provide free healthcare to those we needed it. But, her last trip was different. She made a discovery that put her life in jeopardy and there was only one person she could trust to help her out; her old high school crush, Dave.


This was an adrenaline rush of a story. Once the excitement started, it didn’t stop until the end. I have been enjoying this author’s work. Her writing style pulls me into the story right away and the action keeps me intrigued until the very end. This book is part of a series but can be read on its own. But, I would suggest you start at the beginning of the series so you can get to know the rest of the DeMarco family and not have any spoilers of other books by reading out of order.

I am very much liking this series about the DeMarco family. Dave is so different from his brothers Alex and John, at least on the outside. He is steady and guarded and not at all impetuous, until he heads down to Mexico to rescue a girl he kissed once and hasn't seen in 11 years. As they chase around Mexico and Texas to try to catch a doctor counterfeiting drugs, secrets about Dave's "perfect" marriage and their feelings for one another come to the forefront. A terrific romantic suspense read.

FLIRTING WITH DISASTER is a fast-paced romance that I was definitely torn about. While there was much that I enjoyed about Dave and Lisa’s story, it simply didn’t stack up with the previous stories I’d read in this series. I don’t really know why it just happens with some heroes and heroines – but, that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad book, nope that’s not true, simply that I enjoyed the first two stories more.

Lisa and Dave had a connection back in high school. Yet, Lisa did not get her man then as he went on to marry another. She graduated and put her work first and a love life a far second. Right now she’s in Mexico having just discovered that all is not above board with the group that she’s working for – in fact, something downright illegal seems to be going on. Her plane has been put out of commission, she’s hiding from people who want her dead and she decides that now it the time to call in an old, long overdue favor from her past.

Despite his decision to marry another woman, Dave has never forgotten Lisa or that promise of help. Years have passed, Dave is now a widower and a police officer. When she unexpectedly calls him asking for help he doesn’t hesitate. Now he’s in just as deep as Lisa is as they fight their way back home, evade getting themselves killed, get the bad guys captured and try to figure out their future.

There are steamy moments, some twists and turns along the way and a delightful secondary romance going on for another couple. If you love a good Romantic Suspense then I’d suggest you give FLIRTING WITH DISASTER a try.

*Note: Be aware that this is a reissue of a previously published novel from 2003. You might have it on your shelf with a different cover.

*I received an e-ARC of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley. That does not change what I think of this story. It is my choice to leave a review giving my personal opinion about this book.*

3.5☆

What I liked:
The writing style
The characters
Part of a series: The DeMarco Family
Standalone
HEA
Epilogue

I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

Flirting with Disaster by Jane Graves. This is the third book in The DeMarco Family series. A romantic suspense . I like the character development and the plot in this book. I've enjoyed each of the previous books in this series and look forward to reading the next book.

Dave is in law enforcement and a single dad and Lisa is a pilot, they went to school together and had a crush on each other. One night Dave's phone rings and it turns out to be Lisa saying that she is in Mexico and someone is trying to kill her, she them ask's Dave to go to her and help her. I really enjoyed this story and thought that it was so well written, it had hot chemistry and connection between Dave and Lisa along with a lot of dangerous situations. This is the first book I have read by Jane but definitely not the last. I definitely recommend you read this book and you will not be disappointed. Thank You Jane for this opportunity.

My thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.
Let me start off with the things I really like about this contemporary romance:
Lisa and Dave knew each other in high school. She was "bad girl" from the wrong side of the tracks with an equally bad reputation. Dave was a decent guy, engaged to marry Carla right after high school. There was definitely "chemistry" and "feelings" between "good boy" Dave and "bad girl" Lisa. But despite these "feelings", Lisa is crushed when Dave married Carla, as planned, and they eventually had a daughter together. Lisa leaves town, becomes a pilot, and lives life on her own terms, always making sure she is in control of all her relationships (such as they are) from that point on.
When one of her clients tries to have her killed, Lisa contacts the only person she can trust: Dave, who is now a cop - and widowed to boot. There are a few parallel side stories that the author throws in. I found it a bit distracting, but you kind of get two romances for the price of one.
The author has decent writing skills and she writes very steamy bedroom scenes, so if this is what you look for in a story, you will find it here.
I give this a 3.5 out of 5, if only for the gutsy heroine and the spin on some of the usual romance tropes out there.

The latest in this series featuring the DeMarco Family.

Dave is a widow bringing up his daughter on his own. Lisa is an old friend from high school and needs his help.

Although they are opposites and want different things out of life, the attraction they felt for each other years ago is still there.

Looking forward to the next book in this series.

‘Flirting with Disaster’ is my first Jane Graves book—an author that somehow slipped under my radar—and from what it looks like, a second edition reprint of a previously-published book of the early 2000s.

This does feel like reading an older style of romantic suspense so to speak: where action and passion collide, both burning hot and fast, the protagonists (linked only by a tenuous thread in their high school years very long ago) suddenly diving into each other like the end of the world is coming when danger flares. Somehow I think of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in ‘Speed’, or some other movie in that sort of similar make, where the connection is fast but cursory and I can’t think of anything else past that moment of seizing the day.

Like a movies with scenes told through multiple POVs at breakneck pace, both Dave and Lisa felt like they were carved out of stereotypes at times. The white-knight with a messiah complex, going by way of the cop family tradition and the latter, a wildcard, impulsive and petulant pilot who runs off the deep end just because she can, self-absorbed in putting her own needs and ambitions first (with several TSTL moments), and as a result turns out to be pretty much the female equivalent of the manwhore.

I wasn’t comfortable with the bashing of the dead wife, when it felt like the justification of the romance both Dave/Lisa had going on. Essentially, with the total opposites in play here—the needy, dependent late-wife vs. the fierce, independent woman who’d never left Dave’s memories at all felt like unnecessary drama and ruined it for me. What was wrong with having Dave in a happy or fulfilling marriage with a perfectly good wife before taking up with Lisa as a widower? Why was it necessary to dishonour his previous relationship by saying that Dave admit Lisa a very long time at the very end, all throughout his marriage to another woman—with emotional adultery? (I guessed this was a trigger that was pulled for me)

The secondary romance between Sera/Adam was oddly, the one that drew me in more. I liked their dynamic better, perhaps more so because it also revolved around a dead spouse without the misplaced affections.

In any case, ‘Flirting with Disaster’ was a quick read, but a middling one at best. Graves does write well undoubtedly, but it was just the pairing that didn't do much for me.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This book was okay for me. I liked the drama- felt the drama was handled a little too easy considering all thew connections the DR had. The action did keep you entertained with the story line. I also felt lie to connection between Dave and Lisa came out of nowhere. Even with the past history- which was minimal I thought it was a bit far fetched. I honestly struggled with this one, Definitely an easy read- just thought this one fell short of last books in the series.

Not many people would honor a comment made years ago to call if you ever need help but Dave De Marco does. What a man! Dave keeps his word to always help Lisa in Flirting with Disaster by Jane Graves. This is the third DeMarco brother to receive his story.

The call for help comes from Lisa Merrick, a pilot stranded in Mexico after discoveries that others would like to remain secret. Much more suspenseful than the last two books with a change of scenery for a while as they try to make it back to Texas. It has strong characters encounter twist in the story that keep it a page- turner. I liked this change of tone in the series, making it more of an action romantic suspense story with the danger lurking in expected and unexpected places.