Unrec: Mexican Heat by Laura Baumbach and Josh Lanyon
I read one of Laura Baumbach's books once before. It was the kind of book that I enjoyed while I was reading it but forgot everything about it the moment I finished it. For that reason, I was a little skeptical about Mexican Heat, but I got it from a fangirl who described it as hot.
I tried reading it a couple of times, but the opening paragraphs aren't very good and gave me a kind of skeevy vibe, especially on the dimension of writing about race. Take this for example:Chugging the rest of his cold beer, he toyed with treating himself to some fine hombre tail once he and Benny completed their business. A smooth Spanish accent and a nice set of broad shoulders topped with a handsome face would be a start. And big hands.
But then a time came when I really wanted to read a trashy novel, and I already had this one. Even then, my first instinct was to read just the sex scenes. Unfortunately, I disregarded that instinct and read the whole book.
The book is about Gabriel, who is a cop deep undercover in a drug cartel. He's been there for a while. He has no family. You get the picture.
While meeting a contact, he instead meets a guy who he has amazingly hot sex with (the sex scenes are worth reading) without getting his name.
The guy it turns out later is, of course, Miguel Ortega, second to the head of the other drug cartel. The two cartels are merging via marriage (the daughter of Gabriel's boss and the boss of the other one), and Gabriel keeps getting hit on by the daughter, who somehow never figures out he's gay.
Anyway, Gabriel and Ortega head to Mexico where they have more really hot sex and nearly get blown up. They come back and Gabriel insists to his boss that he's going to continue his undercover work even though his cover is very close to being blown.
It's not a horrible plot, but it's not particularly well written. And then, in the middle of the book, we, for some unknown reason, switch to Ortega's point of view. In case you don't know me, I should tell you that I hate random pov switches. Things should either stick with one character the whole way through or alternate in some sort of deliberate pattern.
Once we switch to Ortega's pov, we learn that his real name is Antonio Lorenzo and he is undercover with the FBI. I'm sure you're as shocked as I was to learn this. Anyway, he also learns that Gabriel is undercover and that his cover is close to being blown.
Equally shockingly, Gabriel's cover is blown at the showdown between cartels and suppliers or whatever (do the details really matter?), and a bag of uncut heroin explodes all over him. The exposure to that much pure heroin makes him go blind. Yes, that's right, one of our main characters goes blind halfway through the book and the whole focus of the story changes.
There's a lot of blahblahblah where Gabriel is in the hospital, and eventually he agrees to go to a safehouse with Antonio who is (a) in love with him and (b) conveniently able to take over Gabriel's care/protection.
At this point, you could play some kind of bad erotica cliche bingo or drinking game and win easily.
The book pretty much goes even farther downhill from there. I'm not sure it's worth reskimming to tell you what happens in the rest of it, because it's not very good.
Really, take my advice: if you somehow end up with this book in your hands, read the sex scenes (especially the first two) and skip the rest.
I tried reading it a couple of times, but the opening paragraphs aren't very good and gave me a kind of skeevy vibe, especially on the dimension of writing about race. Take this for example:Chugging the rest of his cold beer, he toyed with treating himself to some fine hombre tail once he and Benny completed their business. A smooth Spanish accent and a nice set of broad shoulders topped with a handsome face would be a start. And big hands.
But then a time came when I really wanted to read a trashy novel, and I already had this one. Even then, my first instinct was to read just the sex scenes. Unfortunately, I disregarded that instinct and read the whole book.
The book is about Gabriel, who is a cop deep undercover in a drug cartel. He's been there for a while. He has no family. You get the picture.
While meeting a contact, he instead meets a guy who he has amazingly hot sex with (the sex scenes are worth reading) without getting his name.
The guy it turns out later is, of course, Miguel Ortega, second to the head of the other drug cartel. The two cartels are merging via marriage (the daughter of Gabriel's boss and the boss of the other one), and Gabriel keeps getting hit on by the daughter, who somehow never figures out he's gay.
Anyway, Gabriel and Ortega head to Mexico where they have more really hot sex and nearly get blown up. They come back and Gabriel insists to his boss that he's going to continue his undercover work even though his cover is very close to being blown.
It's not a horrible plot, but it's not particularly well written. And then, in the middle of the book, we, for some unknown reason, switch to Ortega's point of view. In case you don't know me, I should tell you that I hate random pov switches. Things should either stick with one character the whole way through or alternate in some sort of deliberate pattern.
Once we switch to Ortega's pov, we learn that his real name is Antonio Lorenzo and he is undercover with the FBI. I'm sure you're as shocked as I was to learn this. Anyway, he also learns that Gabriel is undercover and that his cover is close to being blown.
Equally shockingly, Gabriel's cover is blown at the showdown between cartels and suppliers or whatever (do the details really matter?), and a bag of uncut heroin explodes all over him. The exposure to that much pure heroin makes him go blind. Yes, that's right, one of our main characters goes blind halfway through the book and the whole focus of the story changes.
There's a lot of blahblahblah where Gabriel is in the hospital, and eventually he agrees to go to a safehouse with Antonio who is (a) in love with him and (b) conveniently able to take over Gabriel's care/protection.
At this point, you could play some kind of bad erotica cliche bingo or drinking game and win easily.
The book pretty much goes even farther downhill from there. I'm not sure it's worth reskimming to tell you what happens in the rest of it, because it's not very good.
Really, take my advice: if you somehow end up with this book in your hands, read the sex scenes (especially the first two) and skip the rest.