Format: E-book
Read with: iBooks for iPad
Length: Novel
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Suspense
Series: Protectors, Book 9
Publisher: Harlequin
Hero: Gabriel Hawk
Heroine: Aurora Dean
Sensuality: 3
Date of Publication: December 1, 1997 
Started On: November 10, 2011
Finished On: November 11, 2011

In my quest to read a book featuring a dangerous and sexy alpha hero, I found myself veering towards this Harlequin intrigue that is also a jungle adventure romantic suspense. Though there were moments in the book I would have done away with, it still warranted as a great read for me because of the beautiful epilogue at the end of the story.

35 year old Gabriel Hawk wears danger around him like the clothes on his back. From the enormous tattoo on his left hand to the gold ring in his left ear, Hawk is a man who has never had time for sentiment in his life. Living for the rush that danger gives his life, Hawk walks away from the CIA job he has held as an undercover agent for the past 12 years when his last mission breaks something deep inside of him. Now 3 years on, Hawk works as a professional body guard, that fatal day during his last mission never too far away from his mind.

27 year old Aurora Dean is the daughter of a minister and the a Southern lady of innocence when it comes to carnal desires. Though she craves love and physical intimacy as she has seen throughout her parents marriage, Rorie is a woman not willing to give up her heart to just anybody. The last three years of her life had been spent earning enough money to support her mission of retrieving her nephew from the clutches of the civil war ridden Puerto Angelo.

Enlisting the help of Hawk turns out to be much more than Rorie bargained for when from the first moment Rorie is drawn towards the altogether too dangerous Hawk. Hawk is determined that he go alone on this mission; the mission that just might make him be able to forgive himself and Rorie is just as determined to do whatever it takes for her to be an equal partner in the mission that she has worked so hard for up till now.

So begins an adventure that is riddled with danger from warring factions and a period of time that tests the iron clad resolve of Hawk never to get involved with an innocent because he has nothing to offer a woman for long term. However, in Rorie Hawk finds a woman who is more than his match, a woman who for the first time in his lonely existence is willing to put her life, trust and heart on the line for him, a trust he might shatter to pieces if the truth were ever to come out.

I liked and enjoyed the overall story this one presents, the adventure and romance aspect both given equal importance as the story progressed. Two people who are the definite opposites of one another continue to find that in each other lies their future together, and the chemistry and attraction between Hawk and Rorie of the toe-curling variety serves to be the icing on this piece of cake.

The epilogue as I mentioned before was a beautiful one, and made me increase the book’s rating from a mere good read to a GREAT one; just goes to show what a well done epilogue could mean for the rating of a book.

Gabriel Hawk’s Lady is a mix of adventure and romance that blends well to give a story that entices you to keep turning the pages till the end.

Recommended for fans of jungle based adventure romances.

Favorite Quotes

The man towered over her five-foot-four-inch frame by a good ten inches. He was big, dark and deadly-looking, with piercing ebony eyes and long, silky black hair secured in a ponytail. Dressed all in black—leather jacket, cotton shirt and jeans—he blended into the night like a prince of darkness. Rorie shuddered at the thought. Whoever or whatever this man was, he was danger personified.

“Have you ever done any running or jogging?” Hawk asked.
[…]
“I walk,” she told him. “I’ve never had any desire to run or jog.”
“Why not? Don’t you like to sweat?”
“As a matter of fact, I don’t.” She smiled. “Besides, Southern ladies never sweat. We don’t even perspire.”
“Then what the hell do you do?”
“We glow.”

He had wanted. He had needed. He had desired. And he had taken. But he had never loved.