Review of Flirting with Disaster by Ruthie Knox

Publisher: Loveswept Random House
Series: Camelot #3
Format Read: Digital ARC
Source: From the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Release Date: June 19, 2013
Buying Links: Amazon* | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | ARe
*affiliate link; clicking and making a purchase results in a small commission for the blog.

Blurb from goodreads:

In the latest eBook original novel in Ruthie Knox’s scorching-hot Camelot series, a no-strings fling looks an awful lot like falling in love—or flirting with disaster.


Fresh out of a fiasco of a marriage, Katie Clark has retreated to her hometown to start over. The new Katie is sophisticated, cavalier, and hell-bent on kicking butt at her job in her brother’s security firm. But on her first assignment—digging up the truth about the stalker threatening a world-famous singer-songwriter—Katie must endure the silent treatment from a stern but sexy partner who doesn’t want her help . . . or her company.

Sean Owens knows that if he opens his mouth around Katie, she’ll instantly remember him as the geeky kid who sat behind her in high school. Silence is golden, but he can’t keep quiet forever, not with Katie stampeding through their investigation. It’s time for Sean to step up and take control of the case, and his decade-old crush. If he can break through Katie’s newfound independence, they just might find they make a perfect team—on the road, on the job, and in bed.

Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: How to Misbehave, Along Came Trouble, and About Last Night.

Bea's Thoughts:

I loved the first two books in this series. Knox writes flawed, likable, believable people who grab your attention and she has a wicked sense of humor. She also writes some very hot, sexy scenes. You'd better have lots of ice cubes on hand!


However, I didn't love this book and I'm not entirely sure why other than I never really warmed up to Katie and Sean the way I did to Tony and Amber in "How to Misbehave" and Caleb and Ellen in "Along Came Trouble". I actually liked Sean better than Katie. Sean is a little different for a romance hero, he stutters. At times, he has it under control but being around Katie rouses all sorts of feelings in him and he stutters badly. So does being back home in Camelot, a town where he wasn't happy when he lived there. He had issues with his mother, including how she handled his stuttering. Now she's dead and he's back to clear out her house but it's proving harder than he expected. While there, he accepts a job working at a security firm owned by Katie's brother Caleb, which puts him into contact with Katie on a regular basis.

Sean was attracted to Katie back in high school and Katie was attracted to Sean but neither of them did anything about it. Now Sean's back in town and so is Katie.

Katie has been home for about a year and is newly divorced. She's still recovering from the end of her marriage and trying to figure out what she wants to do with herself. She and Sean circle around each other and after some false starts, they get involved. I wish that Katie had more time to bounce back and change after her divorce before getting seriously involved with Sean or anyone else. She needed more self-confidence and what she gets is mostly from her involvement with Sean. I was happy to see her finally realize, on her own, what she's good and how to turn that into a career. It seemed as if much of her happiness depended on her relationship with Sean. Katie is often described as a bundle of sunshine but I didn't see it. She does see the good in people, but for me, that didn't translate into being a ray of sunshine.

There are some good moments of self-realization on both Sean and Katie's parts; some delightful flirting and humor and those aforementioned hot scenes, but the story never quite worked for me. I actually preferred the subplot with Judah, his stalker and his ex, Ben. It was delightful to have a hero who had a more visible problem than the usual tortured past. Knox handles Sean's stuttering tactfully and gives those of us who don't stutter a glimpse of what it's like. I felt for Sean and I suspect I'll think of him whenever one of my students stutters.

So, not a great book but still enjoyable and very, very hot. The truck love scene was absolutely scorching but also incredibly sweet. It's definitely worth a read.