Wired (Buchanan-Renard-MacKenna, #13)

by Julie Garwood

"A beautiful computer hacker and a bad-boy FBI agent must collaborate--in more ways than one--in the sizzling new novel from #1 New York Timesbestselling author Julie Garwood. Allison Trent doesn't look like a hacker. In fact, when she's not in college working on her degree, she models on the side. But behind her gorgeous face is a brilliant mind for computers and her real love is writing--and hacking--code. Her dream is to write a new security program that could revolutionize the tech industry. Hotshot FBI agent Liam Scott has a problem: a leak deep within his own department. He needs the skills of a top-notch hacker to work on a highly sensitive project: to secretly break into the FBI servers and find out who the traitor is. But he can't use one of his own. He finds the perfect candidate in Allison. Only, there's one problem--she wants nothing to do with his job and turns him down flat. What Liam doesn't know is that Allison is hiding secrets that she doesn't want the FBI to uncover. But Liam will do nearly anything to persuade her to join his team, even break a few rules if that's what it takes. A temptation that could put his job--and both of their futures--on the line."--

• ISBN10: 0525954465
• ISBN13: 9780525954460
• Publish Date: 4 July 2017 (first published 28 July 2015)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Imprint: Berkley Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[thebookdisciple]

Wired by Julie Garwood is the tale of a white hat hacker recruited by the FBI. Fairly classic tale, but I still enjoy the trope. Allison is a brilliant computer scientist who is finishing her college degree. Everyone recognizes her brilliance and her superior mind (seriously-it got irritating after awhile with everyone raving about her brilliance). Oh, and she is a drop dead gorgeous model on the side. Everyone wanted her to be the face of their campaign but she stuck with 1 designer who helped her hide money from her evil aunt and uncle (Ok, so let me be clear here: We get it. She is hot and smart and everyone in the world loves her. Well, her evil aunt and uncle, who had to raise her, only want to use her. Seriously, you have read this book before. Its pretty much any Disney movie ever made).

Can you see my eyes rolling so far? Don't get me wrong, I don't hate any of the tropes used so far, but its all a bit over the top. Gorgeous girl, evil guardians... Anyway, let me get to the rest of the story. Allison hasn't always stayed on the correct side of the law when it comes to her hacking, but she never did anything for a selfish reason. She hacked to give back stolen money. But, needless to say, when the FBI wants her, she is scared they have discovered her secret and she will be on the next episode of Orange is the new Black or something. Liam, the FBI agent who is determined to get her on his team, is instantly smitten with the stunning hacker (ok, I know you can't see my eyes rolling but they are).

So, the action centers around Liam and Allison trying to figure out who the mole in the FBI is and how to stop that person. This was probably the most compelling part of the story. Its high tech and intriguing and really, this is what kept me reading. I never really believed Allison and Liam were in love. Liam was gone a lot. Then he would reappear and things were fine. It just never felt believable and didn't hook me.

Wired brings the intrigue with the plot line of a mole in the FBI, but felt like it missed the mark in the romance. Overall, I still think it was a good story but I think it had the potential to be great. I haven't read a Julie Garwood book in many years, but I do remember enjoying the romance a great deal more. Maybe it was just me? Maybe I am just not feeling it right now? Who knows! If you have enjoyed Julie Garwood, you will probably not want to miss this book anyway!

 

• POV: 3rd


• Tears: no


• Trope: Aphrodite effect, genius, FBI


• Triggers: none


• Series/Standalone: stand alone


• Cliffhanger: no


• HEA: yes....but again, I'm not really sure I buy it.

Books by Sandra Brown, Nora Roberts, Catherine Coulter, Cynthia Eden...then you will probably like Wired!

 

Wired

See full review on The Book Disciple

[pagesbycyndy]

Review:

I thought that I would love this book, Allison seemed like she would be such a bad ass but I sadly found her to be a wimpy people pleaser. One of my main problems with Allison was the way that she was so afraid of disappointing her horrible Aunt and Uncle who raised her only for the money. Time and again Allison let these people take her earnings from her modeling jobs to spend on their loser son who cannot stay out of trouble. As for the romance , there was zero chemistry between Allison and Liam, all of a sudden they just decided that they were an item. No fun banter or heat at all. The computer coding and hacking plot was not really intriguing at all to me and truthfully seemed a bit boring. The main problem for me with this book was Allison's lack of backbone as hotshot computer hacker, it just wasn't happening for her or me. While this book was readable, I did not enjoy it.This review was originally posted on Cindy's Book Binge

[Rowena]

It’s been quite a while since I’ve read a Julie Garwood contemporary and unlike a lot of others, I don’t mind them. Sure, I’m a bigger fan of her older work but her newer stuff does its job of entertaining me. I liked this book fine but I will say that I liked a lot of her other contemporaries a lot more.

I’ve been curious about Liam Scott ever since we met him and I was curious to see what his character was really all about since at one time, I didn’t care for him and then he grew on me and yet, I didn’t feel like I really knew him. Going into this book, I was all about getting to know Liam and it’s a bit disappointing to say that I still don’t feel like we quite got to know him.

Wired follows Liam Scott as he investigates a mole in the FBI and he needs the help of a really smart hacker that looks like sin on a stick. Her name is Allison Trent and she’s just about finished with college and wondering what happens next. He needs her help so she agrees to help him with this project but when she finds his mole, she’s out of the FBI. She’s not interested in working for the FBI. Each day that passes, Allison works on trying to find the mole and Liam works on trying to not jump her bones. It’s not easy because Liam is always with her. Whether he’s supposed to be or not, he keeps her near and he wants to help her with everything in her life. Her work. Her punk ass guardians and anything else that she’d let him help her with.

The romance between Liam and Allison was kind of abrupt. It felt more like lust for a huge chunk of the book because I couldn’t quite believe that they were in love with each other. That they fell in love so quickly. There was something missing in the romance that didn’t win me over completely. Maybe it was because after the book was done, I didn’t feel like I knew Liam as much as I hoped I would. Allison seemed like the perfect woman. She was the genius computer hacker that the FBI was drooling over AND she was gorgeous as shit. A freaking model to boot! Allison was too perfect to be real even with her shitty ass upbringing. I didn’t fully connect with either of them and that was disappointing.

Overall, this book was okay. I liked the book fine. I enjoyed the story even if the romance lacked meat. Liam had potential to be a fabulously sexy hero but I was a bit let down that we don’t really get much of Liam, the man. We get a whole lot of Liam, the FBI Agent. Allison was a strong heroine but I didn’t fully connect with her because she was too perfect. All in all, it was a good story but nowhere near one of Garwood’s bests.

Grade: 3 out of 5

[Ashley]

It turns out I have some pretty fierce opinions about this book. I didn't even realize it until I wrote my review...

This book was a huge letdown for me. I had high hopes since I'm a coder and I thought a coding/FBI/romance/thriller book just sounded AMAZING. But it wasn't what I hoped it would be. :(

It sounded like it was written someone who didn't know code

I don't expect all authors to be experts in what they write about, but a certain amount of research would be nice. To be blunt, I felt like the author just threw around the same words over and over again and hoped that would be good enough for a book about a "coder". They all sounded like this though:

"she and Jordan had plenty of time to sit and talk about languages and codes, and writing programs, and bugs, and hackers."

We never got any details into what they were actually talking about. Just, "Oh then we talked about codes and bugs and hackers." Those same phrases were all that were repeated over and over again.

Two things:

1) Something about that word and "codes" (plural) felt really unnatural. I've just never heard coders talk like that.

2) This was literally the extend of the coding and technical stuff in the book. Even when the character was doing actual coding there still wasn't any other technical descriptions or explanation of how things got done. It was just, "I threw on my headphones, hunched over my laptop, and chased the puzzle." The author could have at least thrown in ever-so-slightly more advanced technical words like "SQL injection" or "traceroute". It didn't feel like it was read by anyone technical at all.

And here's another quote:

"there are some people who have sold various bugs and viruses for a lot of money."

You can't "sell a bug". You can sell knowledge of a bug (or exploit), but you wouldn't sell the bug itself. It doesn't really make sense.

I saw zero chemistry in the romance

The romance was a huge part of the book. In fact, given the lack of depth in the coding part, the romance was arguably the whole point of the story. So it was a huge bummer that I didn't connect with it AT ALL.

I just couldn't see any chemistry there. From my perspective, there was nothing drawing the characters together. Honestly I started skimming through the romancey bits.

Plus, it turned into major insta-love. Allison and love interest didn't really spend all that much time together. In fact, Allison spend half the book complaining that Liam was never there and never calling or texting her. Even when they were together, a lot of the time was purely businessy stuff. Then, in the last 5% of the book, Liam comes back after an absence, rescues Allison, then tells her he quit his job because he wants to marry her, and they literally sit there talking about what they'll do when they're "old and gray". WHAT???

The plot seemed unfocused

There were four major plot points:

1) Finding a leak in the FBI.
2) Dealing with a testy person in the FBI who's upset about Allison finding said leak.
3) Someone stealing Allison's computer program.
4) Allison dealing with her horrible family issues.

I don't know if there were four big plot points to keep us guessing or what, but to me it just felt unfocused more than anything. My brain didn't know which event to focus on or which was supposed to be the main part of the story (and #2 ended up being pretty pointless if you ask me).

Parts of the plot were actually quite fun to read, despite the lack of actual technical stuff. I do think there was some potential there, but it could have been much stronger and more interesting if they just picked ONE (two tops) event and really focused in on it.

The format was kind of jarring

The book has two main points of view:

1) Allison's
2) Liam's

But there aren't neatly organized chapters where it switches between the two. Nope. Instead, it just switches randomly from paragraph to paragraph. I hate this format in general; I prefer neatly organized chapters that swap back and forth. But it was made even worse in this case because the voices between the two characters weren't distinct at all. The book often switched points of view and I didn't even realize, then I'd get confused and have to backtrack a little to find out when it switched.

Also, the book sticks to those two points of view for 90% of the story, then randomly switches to a different character's point of view for like one useless page. That REALLY confused me. I had to reread the first paragraph of that chapter like three times before my brain realized what had happened and who's point of view I was reading from. Then it did this again with a different character a few chapters later. I thought these two chapters were unnecessary and just made the book weirdly inconsistent.



After all that, two stars probably feels like a generous rating... and maybe it is. But to be honest, until the last 10% of the book I did kind of enjoy reading Wired. I was unsatisfied with it—sure—but I was actually fully intending to give it three stars until the ending. Allison became annoyingly sympathetic to EVERYONE who did horrible things. "Oh I feel so awful for my cousin who keeps beating people up and robbing stores. I really want to keep him out of prison." and "That poor guy who stole my computer program and tried to sell it and then held me at gunpoint. I feel bad for him because he's in with some bad people now." Maybe I'm just not that nice of a person, but damn... Allison was way too nice to people who didn't deserve it. At least Liam kept calling her out on that. Then there was that whole ridiculous thing with Allison and Liam deciding to get married at the end... totally randomly.

So much potential in the plot, but turns out it wasn't for me... *sigh*