Date published: December 28, 2010
ISBN: 978-0312371920
Romantic Suspense
Reviewed by Gina
Obtained by Library
Youngest Cutter brother, Zane, is determined to win this year’s bet with his brothers to bring in the largest sunken ship salvage. With his top mechanic ill and fading fast, he hopes the next best person will keep his boat, The Decrepit, afloat. If his mechanic’s daughter, Teal, can’t do it, no one can. And the best thing about Teal—he’s not remotely attracted to her.
Along with a carefree attitude toward life, Zane has never met a woman he didn’t like or, that liked him just fine back. Teal wants nothing to do with him, his boat and his latest salvage project. Not until she hears that it was her dying father who recommended her.
Teal’s life hasn’t exactly been sunshine and roses. In fact, it’s been pretty difficult. Her father never married her mother, a drug addict who spent every dime on her next fix. There was one man in her past she never forgot, not from her first visit to Cutter Cay as a child and when she marries, she is pretty certain Denny is a close replica of Zane. She quickly learns he was not. When a life changing moment opens her eyes to what she needs to do, Teal changes her life and the trip to Cutter Cay is part of that package. She would do anything to gain her father’s love. Anything. Including setting out to sea with the man she never quite got over.
While the pair start off with nothing more between them than the fact that Zane needs Teal in his engine room and Teal needs to find a way to make her father love her, it isn’t long before the attraction between them grows. But others want the treasure below Zane’s ship and they will stop at nothing to gain it.
UNDERTOW is a fantastic trip back to the original Cherry Adair books I read such as OUT OF SIGHT and the other Wright/T-FLAC stories. Action, adventure, characters you get to know really well and like a whole bunch, guys you want to take home and to bed (and not necessarily in that order) and a great love story.
I loved the diving sequences and had some great chuckles with Teal’s view of her engine room. Sailing with them would have been a hoot. I never really got why Zane needed a mechanic he wasn’t attracted to although he does tell us often enough. There were times I felt the story was rushed—that a thread was dealt with as expeditiously as possible and we moved on to the next one. I didn’t see that in Ms. Adair’s earlier books and in some ways this shift jarred me out of the book. Despite their small part in the story I wanted to know just what happened to the little old ladies. And perhaps a bit more about the red headed siren on the Sea Witch that dogs the Cutter brothers.
The story could have ended just fine after the horrific storm and the last fifty pages or so which began with a plane crash seemed rushed and convoluted. The story would have read better if we weren’t rushed into those scenes and maybe an incident or two popped up earlier on. Despite that, as I said, UNDERTOW is fabulous, vintage Adair and not to be missed I’m looking forward to RIPTIDE and the next Cutter brother’s story.
This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.
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