Love Me To Death by Allison Brennan (Giveaway Included)

Synopsis From Back Cover:

Six years ago, Lucy Kincaid was attacked and nearly killed by an online predator. She survived. Her attacker did not. Now Lucy’s goal is to join the FBI and fight cyber-crime, but in the meantime, she’s volunteering with a victim’s rights group, surfing the Web undercover to lure sex offenders into the hands of the law. But when the predators she hunts start turning up as murder victims, the FBI takes a whole new interest in Lucy.

With her future and possibly even her freedom suddenly in jeopardy, Lucy discovers she’s a pawn in someone’s twisted plot to mete out vigilante justice. She joins forces with security expert and daredevil Sean Rogan, and together they track their elusive quarry from anonymous online chat rooms onto the mean streets of Washington, D.C. But someone else is shadowing them: A merciless stalker has his savage eye on Lucy. The only way for her to escape his brutality may be another fight to the death.

When I was first deciding on whether or not I wanted to read/review this book, I really payed attention to the synopsis and it had me hooked.  On that alone, I decided this was a book for me.  What I did not know at the time was that this is considered a "romantic suspense".  I'm still not sure what the hell that means, but if I had seen that in the beginning, I probably would have passed on this one.  I'm really glad that didn't happen.

The problem is that when I see the words "romance", "romantic", or even "love story" used to describe a book or the genre, I prejudge what I'm going to get.  I picture lots of either steamy or tacky sex scenes that are used to fill out a rather pointless and generic plot line.  Now I'm not saying that that picture in my head is fair, it probably isn't.  I'm sure someone will point out a well written romance to me after this, but as a guy, that's what I think of when I hear "romance" used to describe a book.

Quite honestly, I'm not sure why this book needs to be classified as such.  If that's the case, books like The Man in the Brown Suit by Agatha Christie would have to be considered "romantic suspense".  Both books have a likable, strong female lead that is capable of keeping a reader interested in what happens to her.  They both link her with a strong, attractive male that she can't help but be attracted to.  They both featuring amazingly complex plots that takes the reader through some amazing rides of thrill and emotion.  Both books draw the reader into the mystery/suspense, they both make it tactile in such a way that you can feel it coming off the page. Simply put, both books are a ton of fun to read.

Before I get yelled at by the Agatha Christie purists, I'm not saying this book is in that league.  I will still take an Agatha Christie book over this one.  What I am saying though, is that in many ways they are similar and if publishers/authors/readers feel a need to keep insisting on labeling books into very narrow genres, readers will keep miss out on some wonderful reads.  A good mystery, is a good mystery.  Why do we need to break it down into subcategories that by the nature of the "title" will turn off certain readers?  Anyway, that is the end of my soapbox, so I appreciate you reading this far.

My final thought on the book, if you couldn't tell from the above, is that I really enjoyed.  It had everything I look for in a well told mystery.  I'm now going to have to go back and read her books in order, because even though this can read like a stand alone novel, there is information and characters from her previous books.

Now for the fun part, the publisher has very graciously offered an extra copy of the book to one lucky winner.  All you have to do is leave a comment with your email address and you will be entered.  The giveaway will last until 2/11/11 at 11:59 PM, CST.  I will email the winner, who will then have 48 hours to email back or a new winner will be picked.

I would like to thank Lisa at TLC Book Tours for the opportunity to review this book.  If you would like to read other thoughts on this one, please visit the tour page.  On the tour page you will also find links to the author's website, twitter page, and Facebook page.

Challenges:  M&S