I had such high hopes for this book. A sexy mix of romance and suspense is just what I was looking for. Unfortunately, this missed pretty much all of the marks for me and left me incredibly disappointed. 

Mitch is a seasoned Ranger who very recently lost his partner under tragic circumstances, so he's understandably dealing with grief and self-doubt. Andrea, on the other hand, is new to the Rangers and unproven. When she gets the chance to work on a real case (albeit one where she basically acts as bait and no one expects her to do anything), she jumps at the opportunity. "Great!" I thought to myself. "We're going to go on this adventure with an independent, strong woman protagonist and it's going to be an awesome read." Even after halfway I was still hoping it might turn itself around. Can you guess what happened?

 If you're wondering if I finished the book, of course I did! I'm not quitter...most of the time. Let's focus first on what I liked about this novel, which (spoiler alert) will be a shorter list than what I didn't like.
 
The overall plot seemed, in theory, to be interesting and held the promise of suspense. The character of Mitch was a bright spot in this book, although he had his moments of dumb too. Mostly he was very much a gentleman and it was understandable that he was so hellbent on keeping Andrea safe. I mean, Andrea knew what she signed up for, she knew it was going to be dangerous. He probably could have loosened the reins a LITTLE, but considering the death of his partner I couldn't really blame him. So...that's about it for positives.
 
Andrea killed this book. No, seriously. Check out my Goodreads updates I made while reading Willing Target. I kept waiting for her to redeem herself, have just a moment of self-inflection where she realized she was acting like a moron. Here are some of her offenses:
 
1). Started lusting after a guy, the Rangers' client, while dressed up as his sister. Andrea's whole job is to pretend to be the client, Dillon Stone's, sister because she looks so much like her. And then she's worried that something might happen between them. Eww, really? There is more to this story, but to avoid spoilers let's just all agree that based on what she knew at the time, this was weird.
 
2). In the midst of trying to be a convincing stand in for Dillon's sister, she hears loud noises coming from outside and rushes to investigate. Yes, she is part of this job, but her job is to be Karli Stone, not botch the thing for everyone involved. I highly doubt a socialite would go running toward danger when someone has threatened her life, but Andrea will be damned if someone steals the spotlight from her. She wants, no NEEDS, to be a real Ranger. And so, instead of being smart, she runs right in and risks her life and her teammates because she wants to be the one to take down the bad guys. Good job. *slow clap*
 
3). Mentally accuses Mitch of not treating her like a "capable ranger" because she's a woman. Um...based on what they've seen of her "skills" so far, she hasn't proven in any way, shape, or form that she is a dependable member of the team.
 
4). More stuff related to Dillon and lust. And OMG what are you even doing?
 
5). I don't think this is going to be a huge spoiler, since this is a romantic suspense novel and the two main characters do usually hook up at some point, but Andrea and Mitch have sex several times. Ok, cool, nothing wrong there (although he seriously needs his head examined, not sure what about her he's attracted to except her looks - that must be it). This whole novel she bemoans the fact that no one's taking her seriously, she wants to be a Ranger and have this awesome career, yadda yadda. Then she goes and has unprotected sex! With a guy she's only known a couple weeks. And it wasn't just once, in the heat of the moment. It was several times! I'm all for career women having babies, I mean go for it, but I know it takes sacrifices. But in Andrea and Mitch's line of work, seriously, how do you think a baby would fit into those plans if both mom and dad were both traveling around on insanely dangerous missions? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
 
I feel like the stereotypical basic white girl when I talk about Andrea, she just makes me so furious. I. CAN'T. EVEN.

Holy shit, where even am I now. Okay, so the suspense. Or more accurately, what suspense? The premise set the tone for there to be serious moments of edge-of-your-seat, nail-biting moments, but there honestly weren't any. One moment toward the beginning was I guess as close as you could come to saying, "Wow, I was worried there for a second." But then again, it was the beginning of the book so it was pretty clear the protagonists were going to come away mostly unscathed. The rest was just kind of slow and uneventful.

I really wanted to like this book. Romantic suspense was one of my first loves when I ventured out of the young adult and into adult fiction novels. Of course that means I've seen it done right, and I've seen it done wrong, and this was just plain disappointing. However, if you are looking for more of a light romance, you might find this book entertaining...that is if you aren't busy mentally strangling Andrea.