Actually two books--The Professional is first, even though The Player actually the first book in the series (The Professional is book #13, I think?) and it was a bit disconcerting at first to step so far back in the series after jumping in to the latest one. Although I do always enjoy a two-fer...:)

Both stories were decent on their own. I have to say I liked The Professional more, and on its own may have rated it a bit higher. Overall it had a bit more substance to it than the second book, which perhaps can be attributed to it being a later book, or maybe it's just that I read it first. I enjoyed the Jeb and Sophie, loved the senior citizens at the retirement village, and thought the mystery was interesting. There were quite a few humorous scenes in the book, especially between the hero and his "grandfather" Foy and the heroine and her substitute grandmother Cora. Those two senior citizens were quite the characters! Jeb and Sophie's scenes, too, were entertaining. The biggest complaint I have with The Professional is that the heroine's personal problem was solved waaaay to easily by the hero. Seriously, he just showed up with his big, bad ex-military buddies, put the fear of God into the baddies, and they were gone forever. Very anticlimactic.

I do have to say that though I really want to read the next book in the series (it's from the POV of "The Professional"'s twin, and we hear a lot about him in his brother's book, so my interest is hooked) I'm not sure I'm going to be standing in line to read all the books in between The Player and The Professional. There were so many similarities in just these two examples that makes me wonder how much originality I'll find in the other eleven. Both books have a studly ex-military guy who magically falls for a woman on first sight (he feels it physically both times, which was a bit disconcerting--and no, it's not just in the way you're thinking, it's a gut clenching kind of thing) even though he definitely is not interested in anything even remotely resembling a relationship at the time. Both men decide within a matter of days that this woman is it, he must have her for all eternity. Both men are still reeling from a military tragedy that they ended up leaving the service because of. In both books, the female lead's reaction to the hero is so similar that the exact same phrase was used to describe it--she feared she'd have an "immaculate orgasm" before he even touched her. Now this might have been okay once, but to read it twice in the same digital file was a bit off-putting. I might not have even noticed if I hadn't read them one after another.... ( )