New York Times bestselling author Julie Garwood is a temptress, seducing her legions of fans with novel after novel of sizzling romance. Her latest book, SIZZLE, brings together Special Agent Samuel Wellington Kincaid and Los Angeles film student Lyra Prescott.

Lyra is involved in her final project for a documentary film class, and the maniacal Professor Mahler is a “left-wing activist who tended to go overboard with his projects and opinions.” Her project was supposed to be a film about city parks and how they were happy places where families gathered. In reality, Professor Mahler’s statement that most parks have a 10-year lifespan is unfortunately true. Lyra wonders what makes people dump their trash illegally in a public park and move on. She sets up a camera to capture the activity at Paraiso Park for her documentary, which means she must wade through the piles of pungent trash to change the camera memory cards every few days. There’s nothing romantic about this plot --- until Lyra bravely interrupts an attack on her roommate Sidney, and the sexy FBI lawmen in Sidney’s family come running to protect both women.

The Buchanan family men are familiar characters from previous Garwood novels. Impossibly irresistible and lethally handsome, they are heroes and rogues who provide sizzling chemistry in these books. It is only fitting that they have equally lethal male friends and co-workers. Garwood’s golden touch arouses instantaneous lust in Lyra when she sets eyes on Agent Kincaid, “the sexiest man she had ever seen.” Add in his Scottish brogue, and Lyra is barely able to breathe around her new bodyguard.

Sam’s job is to protect Lyra and figure out why someone broke into her apartment, held her roommate captive and set a bomb under her car. After all, Lyra is a grad student, one who stumbles upon a yard sale and purchases rare, first-edition books secretly containing DVDs with incriminating information about a local crime boss. There are a slew of bumbling “puppets,” including Milo, who thinks of Lyra as “his Bond girl.” Milo always seems to be having the “worst day of his life” and is one step behind Lyra’s new bodyguard.

Sam never wants to experience the pain again that he felt when his wife of three years died. He tries to deny his attraction to Lyra, but the urge to take her in his arms and look into her sexy green eyes erodes his willpower; their powerful first kiss only makes him want her more. He begins to share more about himself and the beauty of The Highlands in Scotland where he hopes to return one day soon. There is no turning back for Sam when their sexual chemistry explodes and the pair of lovers satisfy their desires. Sam is a shrewd FBI agent, and the pieces of the puzzle come together as he and Lyra complete the tasks associated with her documentary and dodge the dangers that keep her a target.

Lyra’s eccentric, wealthy grandmother Gigi is a delightful character whose marriage to the love of her life, Tobias, is the model by which Lyra judges the self-centered, money-loving, sex-addicted chauvinists she dates. Gigi is a romantic who believes you only get one true love, and Lyra is very much like her grandmother. Lyra tells herself she is happy being single, pursuing her passion for filmmaking --- until Sam ignites her desire for a man who provides passion and laughter.

The plot lacks the glitz and glamour and historical romance Julie Garwood is known and loved for. She sets the modern-day story in Los Angeles, including a fabulous beach house, and promises a return to her roots with breathtaking scenes of Scotland. Once Sam and Lyra surrender to their instant attraction, the reader is finally appeased and the story picks up in pace and, well, sizzles.

SIZZLE does not disappoint, and I look forward to Garwood’s next bestseller.