Book & Audio Review: Two of a Kind by Susan Mallery

Two of a Kind
Author: Susan Mallery
Narrator: Tanya Eby
Series: Fool's Gold (Book 11)
Publication: HQN; Original edition (June 25, 2013); Brilliance Audio (June 25, 2013)
Length: 382 p.; 9 hours and 6 minutes

Description: Felicia Swift never dreamed she'd hear a deep, sexy voice from her past in tiny Fool's Gold, California. The last time Gideon Boylan whispered in her ear was half a world away…on the morning after the hottest night of her life. Her freaky smarts have limited her close friendships, and romance, but she came to Fool's Gold looking for ordinary. Gorgeous, brooding Gideon is anything but that.

Black Ops taught Gideon that love could be deadly. Now he pretends to fit in while keeping everyone at arm's length. Felicia wants more than he can give—a home, family, love—but she has a lot to learn about men…and Gideon needs to be the man to teach her.

As these two misfits discover that passion isn't the only thing they have in common, they just might figure out that two of a kind should never be split apart.

My Thoughts: Mallery is back with another excellent entry into her Fool's Gold series. I laughed and I cried and loved this "feel-good" romance.

Felicia has always been a misfit. She is a genius who was given up by her parents when she was four and raised in a university laboratory setting. She became an emancipated minor when in her early teens and faked her age to join the Army when she was sixteen. She is a genius at logistics and worked with Special Ops teams whose members became her substitute family. Now she has moved to Fool's Gold with some of her Special Ops friends who are setting up a business to train bodyguards. Felicia wants more than anything else to be normal, to fall in love, and to have a family.

Gideon has also come to Fool's Gold after serving in Covert Ops, being captured by the Taliban, and surviving more than two years of captivity. He watched his fellow captives and brothers-in-arms suffer and die and feels that the only reason he survived is that he had no emotional connections with anyone. He is convinced that he is irretrievably broken and is just a shell. 

Felicia and Gideon had met four years earlier in Thailand where she approached him. They had a brief sexual encounter, her first, and haven't seen each other since. Now back together in Fool's Gold, Felicia wants to resume the relationship and have Gideon teach her how to be normal so that she can find someone to love and fulfill her dreams.

Things get even more complicated when a twelve-year-old son Gideon didn't know he had shows up. Carter's mother had told him about his father when she was dying of cancer. Carter had been living with friends of his mother but, now that they were getting a divorce, Carter feared that going into the foster care system was in his future if he couldn't find a way to make Felicia and Gideon his new family. 

Part of the joy of this series is the strong relationships among many of the characters. Felicia has developed a close group of women friends. Gideon has a good group of men friends too. The community is also close and caring.

Tanya Eby does a great job narrating. Romance lovers won't want to miss this one. 

Favorite Quote:

"Love makes you strong. If you're brave enough to hand over everything you have and take that leap of faith."

I received the paperback November 22, 2013 and read and reviewed it through Amazon Vine in 2014. I got the Kindle and Audible copies recently when I decided to catch up on the Fool's Gold series. You can buy your copy here.