Book Review: Tailspin by Sandra Brown
Tailspin is the latest standalone novel by one of my favorite romantic suspense author, Sandra Brown.
In fact, her books were the first I’ve ever started to read in this genre. This was back in the early 1990s, and as they say, the rest is history.
Now, reading the Sandra Brown books in order is very easy because she is probably the only romantic-suspense novelist who doesn’t write book series.
I was eagerly looking forward to seeing Tailspin on Netgalley, so I was thrilled when Grand Central Publishing offered me an eBook copy to read and review.
After all, I can never say no to Sandra Brown.
The book features Rye Mallett, a charter pilot who takes pretty much every job there is (except illegal cargo), no matter the time or weather. And as luck would have it, Dash, the owner of a freight services company, asks him to fly a cargo into a horribly bad-weathered Northern Georgia town to deliver it to one Dr. Lamber, especially since no one else would dare fly out in this treacherous weather.
Rye, however, has no such qualms, so he takes on the job and flies off into the dark.
Rye expects problems during his flight due to the weather, but he would have never thought his own cargo to be at fault for crashing his place in the first place. He also never thought that another person would be out in that horrible weather so close to this crashed plane. And when that person turns out to be a woman, Dr. Brynn O’Neal, who is very much interested in his cargo, things become quite complicated, and Rye has a lot of questions to ask.
The story is fast-paced, and the 48 hours that spawn the length of the book are action-packed to the brim. Rye doesn’t get a breather at all. Things are coming at him one after another, including several touches with death itself.
There are several well-placed plot twists that I didn’t see coming but eagerly expected (knowing Sandra Brown), so my wait was not in vain. There are secrets galore, and I don’t think I’ve met one character in the book that didn’t have plenty of them.
The characters are pretty well fleshed-out, and the romance between Rye and Brynn is just about right. The sex scenes are not overdone either, and the chemistry between the two characters is palpable. In this book, Rye has a bit more lead time than Brynn, which I found refreshing. In most romance books, the female lead has more screen time, overall. It was nice to see things from the male’s point of view for once.
It was interesting that, by coincidence, at the same time while reading this book, I was also reading an older (2004) paperback edition of a book by Nora Roberts titled Northern Lights, which also had a cargo pilot as the main character, except it was a “she.” Both characters have a lot in common. Both are a bit “crazy” (out there, taking risks that others call “needless”), have a deep and enigmatic character with a lot of dark secrets, and a rough attitude.
Overall, Tailspin is another accomplished book by the queen of romantic suspense, Sandra Brown. After over 30 books written to date, it’s amazing that she still has her magic touch, and her books are as suspenseful and exciting as the first one I’ve ever read from her almost 30 years ago.
Other books by Sandra Brown reviewed on Mystery Sequels
