Review of Male Call by Denise A. Agnew

Denise A. Agnew
Male Call (Hot Zone, #1)
Samhain Publishing, May 2007
Genre & Keywords: Contemporary, Uniformly Hot: Iraq, Love Letters
Rating: êêêê
Heat level: ¹¹

This is the second book by Denise Agnew I’ve read. My first one (Unconditional Surrender) happened to be the second novel in the Hot Zone series. Male Call is the first one in this series. I wasn’t very positive about Unconditional Surrender but I’m glad to tell I liked Male Call a lot better. The background stories of the protagonists are simple and clear, and therefore plausible and not interceding or disrupting the storyline. Again the hero is a hot, well-built military guy, but now he’s actually being a soldier from the start of the story. The pen pal thing with actual letters is, in this era of email, a bit far-fetched but sweet and well-written. The H/H falling in love through their letters is completely believable and makes you anxious to read about them finally meeting each other. And when they do, it’s great.
Their attraction is tangible and goes from sweet to hot in a short time. Sometimes I wondered about the language, for example what to think of a sentence like this: “Sean’s body moved like poetry until the distance between them collapsed.” (p. 37). I’m not a native English speaker so it could just be me, but it seems weird and it’s hard to picture what’s meant by this. But the important thing is that the story is developed well and the characters are portrayed nicely and the plot flows naturally to a satisfying end!
I’ve got books 3 and 4 in this series to look forward to and another two books by Denise Agnew on my TBR pile, Under His Protection and In Her Defense, about SWAT guys. I’ve bought these books partly because of the beautiful book covers. I also discovered that there’s a third SWAT-book, and that Ms. Agnew has written a series about firefighters (Meltdown and Combustion). So a lot of hot heroes that I’m gonna add to my wish list. In the meantime I will also try a few free stories from the authors website that I recently learned about, look here>>> if you wanna check it out for yourself.

Back Blurb:

Her sexy letters are his only lifeline in his dangerous world…
Successful computer software engineer Eve Carmichael melts under yet another hotter than hot letter written by Reserve army soldier Sean O’Callahan. Yet Eve can’t take the thought of his life in danger overseas, and she resolves to get a sex life—and a life period. That means forgetting Sean before anything bad can happen to him. To celebrate her thirty-fifth birthday, Eve plans a trip to Male Call, a male review club. Still, she worries about Sean. She hasn’t received a letter from him in too many weeks. And oh, how she longs for those flirtatious, hot letters.
Sean finds Eve’s letters to be the only lifeline in his increasingly chaotic world. As their feelings grow hot and heavy, he can’t wait to return home and kindle that pure firepower.
When Eve receives a letter from Sean saying he’s been wounded, her fears are realized. But fate and a little mischievous planning by her friends will serve up the greatest surprise of all.