Penny McCall: Tag You're It!

Wow, it's been a while. I won't lie to you, life in general has been kicking my ass and to my dismay, I've got like 5 books read in the past two and a half months. It was pretty miserable existence.

I'm back with a review... and unfortunately, the book sucked.





Tag, You're It! : D
Alexandra Scott & FBI Agent Tag Donovan


FBI Agent Tag Donovan isn't your typical hero – oh, he has a bit of a tortured past, and despite his sarcastic wit and laid-back attitude he's making no secret of the fact that his number one priority is finding the man who killed his partner and left Tag fighting for his life. And he'll do whatever it takes to get justice, including using a completely innocent woman.

Alexandra Scott was just minding her own business, studying mountain lions in the Colorado Rockies and keeping her distance from the rest of humanity. It's not that she has anything against other people, she just likes being alone more. What she doesn't like is having an FBI agent tossed out of a low-flying plane and into her life. She’s really not thrilled that he's trying to charm – or trick - her into looking for an infamous buried treasure left over from Colorado's gold rush days. In fact, she’s not too fond of Tag at all – and he’s equally wary of her, because, after all, he wasn’t dropped on her by accident..



Look carefully. That :D is not a smiley face. It's a colon, then the grade that I chose to give this book.

It's just too bad because the title of the book was what caught my eye. The hero's name is Tag - hence the "Tag, you're it!" pun-ish statement (would that be a pun?...hm..). The heroine's name is sexy and flows well.

But other than the names of the h/h, what are some other attributes that make for a good read?

I'd say, plot, suspense (if it is a "romantic suspense"), chemistry, and all-around readability...and I'd say that this books fails in just about all of the categories. I did get through the book and didn't want to write hate mail to the author for wasting a good three hours of my life, but I did have that bitter aftertaste in my mouth. More of, 'What a shitty read. If this can get published, I'm sure I can write type something up blindfolded with my toes and have that get published too.'

The plot wasn’t interesting – something to do with a treasure hunt, which of course, has the potential to be interesting and exciting, however, this story was convoluted with the various motives of characters getting in the way of the main plot, whether it be the romance or the suspense (and it ended up focusing on neither.)

In short, Alexandra and Tag are on a wild goose chase to look for a chest of gold somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Tag is searching for it because the person he is working for (who doesn’t know Tag is an FBI Agent) wants him to; Tag is going along with the plan because he thinks that his “boss” has the answers to who killed his partner during an operation.

Tag is ordered to bring Alexandra into the hunt, but is unsure as to why. There is another team who is searching for the treasure: this team is the “enemy” of Tag and Alex, but have been sent by Tag’s boss as well (confused yet?)

Tag realizes that this treasure holds deep significance when he realizes his boss sent out two separate teams to search for it and when he finds out that his boss has also sent guards to watch Tag and Alex.

It turns out that the treasure hunt is a scheme formulated by Alexandra’s ex-fiance, Bennet Harper. Furious that he was spurned by Alex, he brings her into the hunt. Harper had been investing large amounts of money of the wealthy (Alex’s former social circle). However, he has been steadily losing his investor’s money and building a bad reputation. In order to remedy this, he tells his investors that there is hidden treasure, gets money for investments, sends search teams to “search” for the treasure, and later, planned to tell them that Tag and Alex ran off with the money.

By the time I reached the real plot of the story, I was uninterested and bored, just about skimming pages to finish.

There was an aspect I did like: I liked that the ending mirrored the very beginning; clever way to show closure.

However, the story isn’t worth reading just for that. No romance, no suspense. Just three hundred and twenty-six pages of boredom.