COUNTDOWN
Michelle Maddox
Dorchester
ISBN: 978-0-505-52755-4
August 2008
Romantic Suspense

Kira Jordan wakes up in a pitch black room handcuffed to a metal wall. She has sixty seconds to escape! Thus, commences a horrible game where to lose is to die. The man she has been partnered with, Rogan Ellis, was convicted of mass murder. But if he is such a horrible man, why does he fight to protect her? While a stranger, something in his piercing green eyes makes her want to protect him. There is no one they can trust, and no where to turn where they are not watched. The only hope of surviving is to work together.

COUNTDOWN is a contemporary story that unfolds much like a watched video game. Each action that Kira and Rogan make, has a reaction within the countdown game they have unknowingly been placed in and paired together. Racing against the clock and for their lives, they must complete six levels of a televised game in order to win a ticket to the otherworld and a new life. Horrible lies are told about each of them, meant to throw the other off track and ruin the tentative trust that each has growing in the other. After each step, Rogan proves that he can be trusted and Kira finds herself quickly falling for him physically. Their lovemaking is intense and hot. Who leads this game and why were they chosen? The truth will be their final test. Will they pass it together, or die trying? Time is not on their side, and the sparks from their love making is not the only thing causing sparks to fly around them. Will their love survive the countdown?

Kathy Fisher
Rating: 3