The Risk-Taker (Uniformly Hot!, #33)

by Kira Sinclair

All returned POW Gage Harper wants to do is forget, even if he has to let some gym rat beat him to a pulp to do it. He certainly doesn't want to tell the tale of his heroism to the tabloids. Especially since he's no hero… But one journalist is determined to get the inside scoop–and she's the only girl Gage has never been able to resist.

Hope Rawlings never took Gage's romantic advances seriously growing up. After all, she was just his buddy, and a guy like Gage could have any girl he wanted. But now she needs his story to get her dream job in the city. And she's willing to do anything to get it.

• ISBN10: 0857994638
• ISBN13: 9780857994639
• Publish Date: 1 April 2015 (first published 18 December 2012)
• Publish Status: Permanently Withdrawn
• Out of Print: 16 August 2023
• Publish Country: AU
• Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 220
• Language: English

Reviews

[Rowena]

I’m all about military men so I was pretty stoked to read this book. I’m not going to lie, I wanted to read this book because the cover was just so yummy that I couldn’t pass it up. Add to the fact that the hero was a POW, yeah my interest in this book was sky high.

So I went into this book, very interested in getting to know the hero and meet the kind of a woman that would snare this very troubled hero’s attention. There has to be a special kind of woman that would catch his attention, right?

Well, let’s just say that Hope got onto my shit list early on and had to dig her way out but even after all was said and done, I didn’t really like her and it had a lot to do with the fact that she was a reporter, looking for a story and that story was Gage.

Gage and Hope were best friends growing up. They did everything together and Gage was not shy about letting Hope know he was way interested in being more than just friends. He asked her out time after time and Hope turned him down, each and every single time. At first, Hope thought that he was just kidding and she refused to be one of the string of girls that Gage took up with but the last time that he asked her out, asked her to take a chance on him, she turned him down and it broke his heart.

I understood why she turned him down but what I didn’t understand was why she wasn’t up front with him about why she turned him down. They were best friends. He just professed his love for you and you said no. A good best friend would have told him why, all of the why and not just what suited you at the time. He was heading out to the military, to put his life on the line and you were scared that he wouldn’t come back. You were scared of losing him the way that you lost your mother, alright…TELL HIM! But nope, she didn’t do any of that, she just let him go off and think that he wasn’t good enough for her so off he goes to war.

Now he’s back in town, recuperating from being a prisoner of war and he’s obviously dealing with some major shit but he’s not talking about it with anyone. He’s not ready to tell the story to reporters, he’s not holding any interviews because he went through some major shit overseas and just wants to be left alone….but no, Hope needs that story and she’s going to get it. No matter what she has to do to get it.
Everything ends the way that it’s supposed to end but the way that Hope handled everything surrounding Gage and the story and well, everything left a sour taste in my mouth and though I didn’t absolutely hate this book, I didn’t love it either. I did like getting to know Gage and I really liked his family, especially Lexie but Hope left a lot to be desired in a heroine.