Judith's review of Necessary Line by Jane O'Roarke

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Judith's review of Necessary Line by Jane O'Roarke

Kaida Petrovic left Sarajevo, looking for a better life for her family. She never expected to find herself kidnapped, her brother missing, and her life turned upside down by not one, but two, amazing men. What's a girl to do? Love them both?

Before meeting Kaida, NFL teammates, Jett Tupuo and Leo Sullivan, had played well together, on and off the field. Saving the girl and winning the Super Bowl was the easy part. Figuring how two alpha males could love the same woman, without killing each other, that was the kicker. 

It is a well-accepted belief that professional athletes really, really enjoy their money off the field as much if not more than they do playing the game for which they are paid so much.  That fact has been reinforced in fiction as well as in the news media time and again.  So it is not surprise that our heroes, Jett Tupuo and Leo Sullivan, both teammates on a winning NFL team that is nearly to the play-offs and destined for the Super Bowl, are playing hard in a downtown hotel suite--these two as well as another teammate, making a total of three football players--all of them enjoying a willing woman.  That's right--one woman, and it is upon this scene that Kaida (pronounced Kadja) happens upon as she is finishing her day's work as one of the hotel maids.  This is her last room and she wants to get it done and go home.  Hearing no response to her brief knock, she opens the door with her passkey and this is what she finds.  Rather than being immediately shocked, Kaida is mesmerized by the scene before her, and curiously, the "players" don't notice her at first until she quietly apologizes and begins backing out of the door.  

Now  here's where the story begins to get really interesting for me:  Kaida is tired, lines of weariness etched on her face, her hair is less than neat, and any make-up she might have started out with is gone.  Yet when Jett and Leo spy her backing out of their room, they immediately lose interest in their female playmate and the attention is riveted on Kaida.  She sees them following her and she runs like heck!!  Immediately she is thrown back into the scenario she faced many times when being pursued by the enemy soldiers in Sarajevo--the many times she was caught and raped--and being chased by two hulking NFL players seemed so familiar.  They are determined to find her and find her they did--bloody and broken on her apartment floor just minutes after being brutally beaten by the drug lord minions who are seeking her 16 year old brother.  He has become involved with a gang that serve as "runners" for this drug lord, and Brother-dear has absconded with a drug delivery and is now missing.  Jett and Leo pick her up, admit her to a hospital and keep watch over her--men from whom she ran and who she doesn't know from Adam.  And when they aren't looking, she signs herself out of the hospital and runs away again.  This lady's history is getting in their way, or at least that is how they see it.

Suffice it to say that Jett and Leo do eventually convince Kaida that she is no longer safe in her apartment, that they will add their connections and resources to the task of finding her brother, and put her mother in a retirement community where she is happy as a clam.  They also convince her to enter into an affair with them both, although the friendship between Jett and Leo is strained for a time.  Whose woman is she, anyway?  But Kaida's past hurts and her fear of being abused keep her from trusting and it is a long haul ahead of her in that department.  On the flip side of things, Jett and Leo struggle also.  They are beginning to believe that they are falling in love with Kaida, but that love is competing with their love of football and performing in the professional games.  Somehow they realize that they are going to have to make a choice about who will come firsts with them:  Kaida and her safety and well-being, or professional football.

I found this short novel to be incredibly well-written and so very poorly edited.  I know a few of my former high school English students who could have done a better job, and if Ms O'Roarke paid someone or the publisher paid someone to edit and correct, they did NOT get their money's worth.  As I look back on the reading experience, though, I found that the obvious sloppy handling of this story grew less and less important as I got into the tale and began to feel a connection of sorts with the characters.  (This empathy I feel for fictional characters has always been a mixed bag for me and one of the reasons that when a character is too strong, it really wrings me out emotionally.)  I could almost feel Kaida's shyness and reticence when she attended her first NFL game and got sort of "worked over" by some of the other players' wives and/or girlfriends.  No wonder she refused to ever go to another one.  Her brother's enemies haven't gone away, either, and it is quite a joy to see Kaida's inner strength which has been forged in the hell of war to not fail her when they come after again.  Add in Jett's former college roommate who is not in Navy espionage as a SEAL along with some of his cronies, and you have a full cast of characters who jump off the page and make this a massively entertaining read.

Apart from the obvious difficulties with the text, this is a fun read.  It is stand alone although there is a sequel that has also been published.  This novel came out in the Spring of 2010, but it is new to me.  I am delighted to have found it and want to read the sequel as soon as possible.  It is published by a publisher previously unknown to me, but I celebrate so  many of these smaller, newer publishing houses that make really good stories available to us by such good authors as Ms O'Roarke.  I hope you will take the time to acquire this story.  Enjoy!!

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Judith at  Dr. J's Book Place.


This book is available from Bonaparte Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format.