Full Steam Ahead

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Full Steam Ahead
Karen Whitemeyer
Bethany House

Nicole Renard returns home to Galveston, Texas, to find her father deathly ill. Though she loves him, Nicole's father has always focused on what she's not. Not male. Not married. Not able to run Renard Shipping.

Vowing to find a suitable husband to give her father the heir he desires before it's too late, Nicole sets out with the Renard family's greatest treasure as her dowry: the highly coveted Lafitte Dagger. But her father's rivals come after the dagger, forcing a change in Nicole's plans.

After a boiler explosion aboard the Louisiana nearly took his life, Darius Thornton has been a man obsessed. He will do anything to stop even one more steamship disaster. Even if it means letting a female secretary into his secluded world.

Nicole is determined not to let her odd employer scare her off with his explosive experiments, yet when respect and mutual attraction grow between them, a new fear arises. How can she acquire an heir for her father when her heart belongs to another? And when her father's rivals discover her hiding place, will she have to choose between that love and her family's legacy?

I really wanted to love these characters- I mean, an eccentric scientist and a dagger-wielding mathmetician? What's not to love? But too often I felt like the author was just telling me what happened rather than showing me. I mean, it was mentioned several times that Darius was eccentric, but I wanted examples. You shouldn't have to tell me. Let his actions get that message across. This happened so often in the book that I noticed.

Also, there were *cough, cough* more kisses than I was really comfortable with. There was also a lot of- how do I put this- longing for physical touch? I skimmed/skipped a lot of that, and it took up a lot much more of the book than I was expecting.

The thing is, even though I normally really enjoy Karen Witemeyer's books, I don't neccessarily think her writing in Full Steam Ahead is different from her other books; its just that her other books -like Short-Straw Bride or Stealing the Preacher- are really comedic and slightly ridiculous (in a good way) and so you end up having a lot of fun. This book- while it did have parts I enjoyed- just fell a little flat for me. It didn't have the redeeming spark that her other books did.

However, that being said, there parts to this book that I liked. I just found Full Steam Ahead  a bit weaker than many of the author's previous books.

Rating: 7

I received this book for free from Bethany House in exchange for my honest review.

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