Sizzle: A Novel (Buchanan-Renard)

The story was is enticing, haunted by action and driven by by desire. I enjoyed the banter between characters. Benefits, from a completely different direction are: reading is exercise for the mind, like physical activity is for the body.

One of my favorite authors but unfortunately the read was only so-so. This book though easy to read was only mildly entertaining with a somewhat let down finish. Not nearly as good as some of Garwoods other books and now having read it wouldnt have paid more than 4bucks.

Sizzle is written much as Julie's other books that include a member of the Buchanan family. This one is more about new characters and has a good plot with twists and turns so you are driven to read to the end. Yet, it was not as rivoting as some of her other books that I could read again and again.

This newest Garwood book absolutely lives up to the Garwood name. There is action all the way, and once you start reading you can't seem to stop. BUT - it is not on the level of her early historical novels. This book is still an absolute must-have for true Garwood fans, but don't expect a new Ransom.

After reading all the mixed reviews I took a chance and read Julie Garwood's Sizzle. I was so afraid it would be an awful piece but turns out it was pretty good! The only thing I can say about the ending is that it could have been wrapped up in a better way.

Great read by Julie Garwood. This story has lots of action, fun and humor. One of the "bad guys" is such a wildly funny character. I laughed out loud at some of the antics of this bungling crime wanna be. What great fun this book was, it was great to see some characters of past books appear in this story as well. I highly recommend this book!

JULIE GARWOOD IS ALWAYS A GOOD BET EVEN WHEN THEY ARE LESS THAN WHATS EXPECTED, FIRST MISTAKE IS TO JUDGE A BOOK ON ANYTHING ANYONE ELSE SAYS. I HAVE EVERY BOOK SHES EVER WRITTEN IN HARDCOVER AND PAPERBACK (THIS INCLUDES HER EMILY CHASE BOOK). EVERY SINGLE HISTORICAL IS A 5 HANDS DOWN WHEN SHE SWITCH TO CONTEMPORARY HER QUALITY WENT DOWN BUT IN NO WAY OUT....IT'S STILL HARDCOVER FOR ME. RATING A BOOK SHOULD COME WITH HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT A BOOK (OR MOVIE) AS YOUR READING (OR WATCHING IT)....NOT AS A AFTERTHOUGHT CAUSE IF WE START DOING THAT "EVERYTHING AS AN AFTERTHOUGHT" LIFE WOULD REALLY BE BORING AND NOT MUCH TO DO. SO IF YOU PREFER JULIE GARWOOD AS A DOWN RIGHT FAVORITE JUST GO WITH THE FLOW AND ENJOY. I KNOW I WILL..STEF

This was an okay story. There wasn't anything especially offensive about it, it just never really grabbed me. The characters and their romance were uninspiring and the mystery lacked a real sense of weight, so overall it was just a so-so story. I've certainly read worse books but I'll never reread this one or recommend it to a friend.

<Spoiler Alert>
The premise is that Lyra Prescott is a film student working on a documentary for her final project in the last class she needs to complete her degree. Her professor is a pompous blowhard with delusions of grandeur and she selects her project topic specifically to try to prove him wrong on one of his many opinions about society. He's made some comment about how parks are a waste of money and effort because people don't really care about them and ultimately just dump their trash there. Oddly enough, considering his viewpoint, the professor has a poster of a very pretty local park in his office so Lyra decides to go to this park and get footage of how it's still a pretty place to prove the professor wrong....only when she gets there it turns out he's totally right. The place is routinely used by everyone from street thugs to biomedical companies to dump their "toxic waste". Lyra decides to set up a camera that will take photos over time and use it to catch people in the act of illegally dumping and use this for her documentary.

After collecting photos for a few weeks, Lyra goes to retrieve her camera, which she's stashed at the top of a hill in the park. While she's there, she looks on the other side of the hill, apparently for the first time. Here she sees a little garden, well tended with flowers and completely free of trash amid the toxic waste. She's intrigued by the sight and wonders who would put a garden in such a place. So she decides to set the camera up again, this time pointing at the garden, in the hopes of solving the mystery. Then she pitches the idea to her professor for extra credit. He cautions her to not let this project interfere with her final, but otherwise doesn't object. On her way home from this meeting, Lyra happens to drive past a house where the wife is giving away all her cheating husband's belongings. Lyra spies some first edition books and some DVDs she wants and grabs them, then drives straight to a shipping store to send them to her family's ranch in Texas before heading to her grandmother's house for the weekend. When she get's back to her apartment, it's to find two men there waiting for her and holding her roommate hostage. She calls the police but eventually has to confront the men with pepper spray and a tire iron. She and the roommate escape and the two men split as they hear sirens drawing near.

That was a fairly interesting beginning but things pretty much went down hill from there. First, I never felt all that connected to Lyra. She was too perfect in most ways and just annoying in others. There's this cringe-worthy scene where the roommate goes on and on about how Lyra is soooo beautiful. The roommate good-naturedly talks about how she herself is "girl-next-door cute" but Lyra's the bombshell knockout that men stop in their tracks to stare at. It's so phony and unbelievable. You're telling me that this roommate doesn't feel the least bit jealous that when she and Lyra go out together, men won't give her a second glance because Lyra is just soooooo stunning? Please. Lyra's beauty is mentioned over and over throughout the book and it's seemingly done just so Lyra can say "gee, I don't know why everyone says that, I'm nothing special." It's supposed to make us like that she's not a narcissistic b*tch but it all sounds so phony and artificial that it has the opposite effect. This continues all throughout the book as Garwood has basically every male who enters Lyra's stratosphere make it a point to say hello to her and pant after her every word. We get it, Julie, the heroine is beautiful, enough already.

The issues with Lyra don't stop there. Oh she's addicted to chocolate! Us women and our chocolate, right girls? We need candy bars just to get through the day! <gag> Talk about a cliche! And, of course, Lyra never gains an ounce while she's pounding the Snickers bars. About 9/10 of the way through the book suddenly she turns into a runner. Even though she's never mentioned exercise of any kind prior to this, suddenly she "needs" to go for her "usual" 3 mile run. Uh-huh. And, despite her life being in danger to the point where she's got a live-in bodyguard following her around, she does the standard cliched TSTL heroine thing of constantly arguing with the man trying to protect her because, gee whiz, she can't just like, stop living her life because there are gunmen after her! She's got college classes to attend and a camera in the park to check. There are some times where she just shuts up and lets the hero guard her, but it's about evenly split with the times where she argues with him about going somewhere or doing something she doesn't REALLY need to do, considering the death threats.

Overall, nothing about Lyra felt real to me. She's gorgeous and yet chaste (though, at least, not a virgin). She is apparently oblivious to the copious amounts of male attention she gets ("Oh they're just nice guys being friendly!" Please, women know when men have the hots for them, especially when it's literally every man they meet). She's rich, thanks to a trust fund but for some reason chooses to live in a teeny apartment near campus with nothing of value whatsoever. I guess that's supposed to make us think she's not spoiled but really it's just weird. As the book progresses we see plenty of situations where she spends significant money on things without even batting an eye (i.e. when her car is vandalized and she just drives to the BMW dealership to buy herself a new one, or the $800,000 house she paid for outright so her grandmother would have a nice place to stay, etc.) so it doesn't make sense that she'd choose to live in a tiny hovel with her roommate when she could have easily sprung for some better accommodations for both of them. And to round things out, she's a southern belle with all associated manners and, despite her chaste lifestyle, she's amazing in bed. Basically she felt like a cardboard cutout of a heroine. Like JG just went down a checklist of standard heroine qualities and stuck them all in.

Sam was likewise hard to connect with. He too seemed like just a generic assemblage of cliched hero qualities without any spark to set him apart. He was so calm and controlled all the time that he seemed emotionless. That, in turn, made it hard to believe a) that he had any real feelings for Lyra, and b) that he was sooooo torn up about his dead wife that he wouldn't risk getting involved. He rarely talked or thought about his dead wife throughout the story so it was hard to accept it as a driving factor in his life 3 years later. Maybe if the opening scene was about him losing this paragon of a woman and being devastated that would have helped make him seem more human and less robot. Instead we have to sit through a completely unrelated speech and flashback to how Sam is connected with Alec and Jack and all the Chicago crowd. I get that JG is trying to make this a related series but making that connection really doesn't add anything to the story and that time could have been spent on other things.

Sam's Scottish brogue didn't fit into the story, in my opinion. First of all, why does he even HAVE a brogue? According to the summary of his childhood that he gives to Lyra, he'd lived in 10 different countries before he entered high school. So if he didn't spend any significant time actually IN Scotland, how did the brogue become the dominating element of his speech? Seems to me that it would make a lot more sense for his accent to be a jumble of all the various languages he was exposed to in his youth. Second of all, what purpose did it serve in the story? Was the whole Scottish angle just there so that JG could toss in that completely out of place epilogue of Sam owning a castle and having a couple of titles? That stuff just came out of nowhere and really made the story seem ridiculous. Stick with the modern setting for the novel, Julie. Don't try to toss in some medieval romance novel stuff just for shiggles. Seriously, why was that epilogue in there? Is it just because Lyra is rich and JG wanted to try to offset that by making Sam a noble so they're on more even footing??

All in all, neither of the main characters really worked for me. I didn't hate them, but I didn't care about them or their romance either. Even when they were together and getting hot and heavy it lacked a spark. And Sam's behavior after their first time sleeping together was just bizarre. They have earth-shattering sex and instead of collapsing to the side and pulling Lyra into his arms like most romance novel heroes do, he gets up without a word and goes into the bathroom? Then he comes back and asks her if she'd like him to give her a grade on how she did at the sexin? Say what? That's one of the least romantic post-sex conversations I've ever read. It wasn't even funny. Lyra responds by "joking" back but the whole thing just fell flat and reinforced the feeling that they weren't that affected by each other.

And how about the fact that Sam left Lyra to move on with his life? There wasn't even a goodbye scene to show us Sam forcing himself to walk away. He was just gone when she woke up in the morning and we're told that her new bodyguard's name is Vic. After almost leaving her twice before and then only sticking around because the new guards were too attractive and it made him jealous, I felt like we were jipped out of a more emotional scene where Sam finally makes the decision to go and forces himself to follow through. He's just there one minute and then gone the next. And worse yet, when the grande finale happens and Sam saves Lyra in the nick of time....he then totally ignores her for an hour while he gives his statement to the cops? Seriously? Not even a 2-minute scene with him desperately hugging her and reassuring himself that she's okay?? Nope, he won't even look in her direction until she finally gives up and decides to drive herself home. Oh yeah, this is one steamy relationship they've got going on here...And once Sam finally DOES tell Lyra that he loves her and wants to marry her, what was with her spending like 10 minutes trying to think of excuses as to why they wouldn't work as a couple?? "Oh dear, we can't get married, I'm embarrassed that my parents are self-involved, money-grubbing jerks! You should run away from me!" "Oh no, my over-protective brothers who haven't actually done a single thing to protect me the whole book will say you're not good enough for me because no one is. This relationship will just never work out!" The excuses were extremely weak to begin with and since Lyra has already admitted that she's in love with Sam and now knows that he loves her too, it just doesn't make a lick of sense that she puts up this ridiculous extended protest.

Beyond that, the plot was pretty weak. It relied heavily on coincidence, which is never a good thing. Lyra just HAPPENED to do two things that made two completely unrelated sets of criminals come after her in the same day. Wow, what are the odds! Oh Milo's boss just HAPPENED to drop an incriminating safe off at the park where Lyra's camera was set up so she could get a picture of him. Oh the DVD case with the incriminating disc just HAPPENED to fall down the seat cushions in her car so it wouldn't be found until later, etc.. All the scenes from Milo's perspective were useless. He was a dumb (literally) character who never really ended up playing an important part in the book. JG used his chapters to string a few dots together, but all that could have been accomplished in other ways. His dopey blundering was maybe intended to be comic relief but the slapstick just took away from any possible sense of urgency with regards to the threats on Lyra's life. In one scene we have Lyra and Sam getting shot at by two thugs and that scene is juxtaposed with the blundering Milo laying in a heap of trash and thinking about how much it stinks. It just messed the pacing all up. And at the end of the story, Milo didn't do a thing to either bring about the climax or save the day. We have to listen to his POV all through the book and then he just sort of....leaves. It just didn't add anything to the story.

It's pretty obvious from fairly early on that Milo and his employer's quest to get back the DVD Lyra picked up at the yard sale are just red herrings for the people who are really trying to kill her. And once you figure that out, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that her taking pictures at the park is the only other thing going on in the book. And following that, is the easy realization of who the true villain of the story must necessarily be. Despite Lyra talking at length about how literally the whole campus either knew or could have found out about the subject of her documentary, as a reader we know that only ONE of those people has been introduced to us as a character - her blowhard professor. So it wasn't much of a reveal at the end. However, once his reasoning is explained, it doesn't make any sense. He says that he killed his wife and buried her body at the park....but that was weeks ago. So why would he care about her filming the park NOW? And, he specifically buried the body on the side of the hill where the garden was located, which Lyra only just started filming. So what's the problem? The body is already there and buried, who cares if she takes photos of the trash heaps after the fact? Was he planning to go back and visit the dump site? And why didn't he just tell Lyra that she couldn't use that as an extra credit project? He could have said it was too similar to her documentary to be used a second time. Or how about he just climb up the hill and take her camera when she wasn't around?? I just don't see what the big issue was here for him. And why would he keep a poster of the place where he dumped his wife's body on his wall in the first place? Seems pretty dumb to me.

Aside from that, there were a couple of plot threads that were just left hanging. For one thing, we never find out who planted the garden that prompted Lyra to film in the first place. It certainly wasn't planted by the professor when he dumped his wife's body. He didn't care enough about her to do something like that. So that's just left hanging. For another thing, who vandalized Lyra's car? She's got 2 sets of bad guys harassing her, but neither one claims responsibility for it. And both sets of thugs are looking for something she has, but whoever smashed up the car didn't search it because everything inside is right where Lyra left it - including the incriminating DVD Milo's boss is after. So the whole thing seemed out of place.

Overall it was a pretty generic story with a heavy dose of cliche and not much to make it unique.

Although this is the eighth book in Julie Garwood's romantic suspense series, it can easily be read as a standalone. I always enjoy a JG novel and this one was no exception, even though it's definitely not without its faults. This story started out interesting and held my attention throughout. I thought the pace and writing flowed well, but I didn't sense this author's trademark humor and charm as much as usual. I liked both Lyra and Sam but they seemed a bit too perfect and just never felt like real people to me. Unfortunately, their relationship didn't move me in any way either. I also thought the story was light on suspense and that the mystery was predictable. The best and most well-drawn character in my opinion was the bumbling assassin who I strangely ended up liking. Overall I found the book entertaining and never boring. However, compared to some of JG's other stories, this one just fell a little short. Nonetheless, I'm still a big fan and although I didn't love it, I'm still glad to have read it.

According to Fantastic Fiction Sizzle is part of Julie Garwood's Buchanan series. I didn't realize this when I grabbed it from the new release shelf at my local library. I thought cute cover, catchy title; I might as well give it a whirl. I didn't have any difficulty reading it as a standalone novel. The Buchanans were primarily supporting characters. I don't feel their back stories would have made me like Sizzle any more or any less.

I felt the writing was so-so and the plot was predictable. The steamy bedroom scenes were a pleasant surprise. That was really the only time I didn't find the characters boring. They were likeable but nothing special. I never really connected with any of them. Some of the dialogue didn't seem to go well with the age of the characters and the era they were living in. It almost gave it a dated feeling. If I had to sum up my feelings on Sizzle in one sentence I would say it was a cute and quick read but not a book that grabbed me and made me miss the characters when it was over.

Garwood combines romance, action and slapstick humour into a book.

In the first chapter we are introduced to a couple of FBI agents, and it seems like the genre we're reading is going to be action. Then we meet the film student female protaganist and are presented with potentially the most boring plot ever: studying parks.

So far the book hasn't been too bad, the handling of the characters backstories is somewhat clumsy but we sense potential for some suspense. Then we are introduced to Milo.

Milo is an apparent serial killer whose intro consists of three slapstick murders where poor Milo gets bitten by dogs, trips over funiture and generally stumbles like Mr Bean around the story. By this point its impossible to take any of Sizzle's plot seriously, especially when almost all of it is super-human sex between the film student and the main FBI agent.

The plot is so shallow as to feel mildly ripped off even when only loaning the book, the prose is childish and in the end the only real joy of the book was finishing it.

This book about a film student captured my eye right away. I knew it would be a good read, and it was. The story was interesting from beginning to end. I love the chemistry between Lyra and the lawman sent to protect her. The book makes you think about the people around you, especially if you are a college student who is doing research or writing a book. Garwood is very good at exposing the possible dangers that lurk around us, and sometimes having a handsome lawman around doesn't help. It was a great book though. I will continue to be a fan of Ms. Garwood.

I tried several times to read this book, but haven't been able to make past a quarter of the way in. This can't be Garwood writing this - she's a much better writer (at least she was with her earlier historicals, and a few - very few - of her contemporaries). In her earlier books, she made us feel what was happening with the characters and made us care about them - those books were page-turners. In her recent books, she just tells us as if she's a beginning writer cataloguing events as they occur. Her characterization is very shallow, there is no action, the plot just plods along without anything there to keep us reading. I strongly suspect that her publishers have a ghost writer meeting her deadlines so they can cash in on Garwood's name. It's very unfortunate for Garwood as it's ruining her reputation as a wonderful writer. If I try repeatedly to read a book and can't finish it due to poor writing, it automatically gets one star. I think there's only one other book I've rated with one star, and it was also a Garwood book (her last historical).

Sizzle is a fast paced novel about the sizzling romance between film student Lyra Prescott and FBI agent Sam Kincaid. Could Lyra have accidentally captured a crime scene on camera or could she have picked up some incriminating evidence at a yard sale? Something has happened and someone wants to destroy the evidence and Lyra also. The sinister plot thickens and grows as does the smoldering attraction between Lyra and Sam as they avoid shootings, bombs, and crazy relatives.

The best things about Julie Garwood's books are her characters and dialogue. They are always humorous and bumbling. Lyra and Sam are beautiful, levelheaded, young people who do not like commitment. Their dialogue and interacton is spicy and hot! Lyra's grandmother is a sweet little old lady who steals holy water from the church. Lyra avoids her parents and calls them "those people" because they are greedy, selfish, and manipulative. They are desperate for money and try to takes it from her and her grandmother. Babs Rooney catches her husband cheating and throws all his things out in the yard for a yard sale. Professor Mahler has a hot temper and a vindictive personality. Milo, the bumbling hit man has killed 3 victims but each one was an accident. Milo is not very smart and he has a lot of problems. Most of the criminals in this story are not very smart which I think is pretty realistic. The characters and dialogue are exceptionally amusing in this book and you can easily fall in love with Sam.

Most of the criminals in this story are inept. Their bumbling and stupidity lead to the solving of the crime. I think this is pretty realistic and adds to the authenticity of the story. It is also very amusing.

This is a quick and easy story to read. There is a hot sizzling romance, quirky characters, suspense, mystery, absurd humor, and lots of laughs

I love Julie Garwood books. Sometimes I read them from the library and wait until the price comes down before I buy my copy. So in other words this is a keeper.
Ms. Garwood writes well and I enjoy her books from the beginning to the end. I try to make her books last me at least 2 days of reading if I'm busy I sometimes get 3 days. Great Book.

Until searching around on goodreads, I had no idea that romantic suspense was a genre. Well apparently I have been woefully ignorant as this genre is often on best seller lists!

Sizzle was a fun and easy read. Garwood writes interesting characters and the dialogue was quite good. There is a hapless assassin who is a great source of humor. However, I have no idea why this book is entitled Sizzle. The cover art isn't indicative of the tale's contents at all. Perhaps it refers to the romantic chemistry? In my opinion this book was primarily a romance, contrary to the way the suspense was marketed in the book's description. The suspense was written around the romantic intrigues. Sizzle is a nice escapist read - perfect for the summer. True mystery lovers may not appreciate this story, but it will be a popular choice for many readers.

Julie Garwood has fallen off her game! I have read all of her books until she started writing her mysteries. What happened to the delightful characters her women used to be? I laughed and enjoyed all of those books. I haven't liked Julie's books for the last few years. She has just changed her techniques and they are coming off bland and disappointing! This makes me very sad. Bring back the old Julie with the great best sellers.

Julie Garwood usually gives us much, much more than this. The threads of Scotland from the historical romances and the most enjoyable series about the Buchanan family and FBI are there. The hero is there with a good basic plot for a mystery. But . . . this was like Julie Garwood gave somebody a bare bones outline and they wrote the book in a style that is a cross between O.Henry and Janet Evanovich and a junior high student. The story is just fairly well developed. The supporting characters are pitiful -- somewhat like the characters in other books that are dubbed as comic romances or comic mystery, but are so inane and silly that they are completely irritating. I hope after this, she will return to her usual spectacular stories that have better than real life romantic characters with believable dry wit and interaction with others as well as the ability to protect others and solve an interesting mystery.

Disappointed, not worth the money. I am sick of everyone looking perfert and they all are in this book (except the bad guys.)Sam is acting as Lyra bodyguard as favor to a friend. My understanding is that FBI agents work federal crimes or when they are called in for assistance. None of that here. A little reality would have been nice. And guess what(maybe a spoiler here) in the end he find out he is line to be an Earl. It't not a horrible book but its too much like reading an harlequin romance. I was expecting more.