Herc’s Mercs: The Collection Volume 1 is a set of three stories. They are in order: The Bigger They Come, Line in the Sand, Bloody But Unbowed. Each story involves one of Herc’s Mercs and a civilian. The blurb does a good job of telling what the series is about so I won’t repeat it. The stories are told in duo pov, third person.

3.5 Stars



I normally don’t read book sets because it doesn’t allow me to give a long review of each story. I have to base the review on all books in the set, which turns out to be an averaging of stars. I’ll mention what all the books had in common, and then give a short review of each and my rating of that story.

The stories are all in third person as I mentioned. I prefer third person, but I wish there wasn’t so much monologue. Another issue I had was, Herc’s Mercs was supposed to be the most elite security company, but their men did some stupid things, which had me doubting they were any good. Lastly, a common issue I’ve had reading this writing duo’s books is there are many grammar mistakes that are easily spotted. I think more proofers are needed to help find the errors.

1) The Bigger They Come is about Cade aka ‘Herc’ Thornton who is the founder and boss of Herc’s Mercs. Because of an injury, he works the desk, but is offered an astronomical sum of money to protect a brilliant scientist, Jude Morgan. Jude doesn’t want the protection, and Cade and he don’t get off to a good start. Once they come to an agreement, things get more interesting especially adding in the mystery of the creepy ex of Jude’s. I’m not normally a big fan of ex-military/security stories, but Cade is a kind, thoughtful, protective man. He’s not the caveman type of Alpha, which I don’t like. Cade is the type of character who is trustworthy to the core and I really liked him as a character. I liked Jude more as the story went on.

The one issue I had with this story is the security team slip up. At one point, the little old lady neighbor tells Cade that a guy was watching the house from across the street. What I find astounding is that the security team is supposed to have cameras everywhere around the house and someone watching the screens at all times. Yet they didn’t bother to have a camera trained across the street and had to have the neighbor tell them about the watcher? To me that is sloppy work and speaks to me that the company is not as skilled as they say. I’m just a reader and I can tell that training a camera across the street is a logical step. For me this is a weak spot in the story and throws a monkey wrench into the authors’ emphasis that Herc’s Mercs is an elite security company.

Overall, I liked this story the best of the three. Cade was amazing and he and Luke made a good pair after they worked out their differences. The security issue annoyed me and dampened my belief that Herc’s Mercs were as good as they were made out to be. I’m going to give this story 4.5 stars despite the security issue, that still drives me nuts.


2) Line in the Sand is about Merc Alec “Red” Davis and actor Jon Baldwin. Red enraptures Jon as soon as they meet, but Red wants to remain professional and Jon respects that but really wishes that wasn’t the case. I really liked Jon. He was a bit of a Marty Stu type character, always cheerful, nice, and loved his fans. Normally I don’t like Marty Stu’s, but Jon was an exception. The character seemed realistic despite his bubbliness. Red is more practical and stoic. They’re actually a good fit.

Their story is how Red has to remind Jon of the dangers of dealing with the public. It’s difficult to keep Jon from the fans. The big danger comes when Red and Jon take a vacation and are swept up in a flash flood caused by an earthquake. Their survival depends on Red and his skills, and their tale of escaping the jungle is well done. Red is unable to keep his cool as he attempts to save Jon, because Jon is dying and Red has finally admitted to himself he loves Jon. Luckily, help is on the way.

Red losing his cool is another flaw with a Merc team member. The men are supposed to be cool as cucumbers no matter what the circumstances, but Red is not. This is another example of Herc’s Mercs not being an elite team and which reinforced my belief from book one. The other issue I had with this story was there was a lot more monologue in this book than in the first one.

One last thing, how can Red slash his way through the jungle for days with a knife? How huge is this knife and how does he keep it constantly sharp? Does he carry a whetstone with him too? Red keeps thinking he wished he had a machete so it's clear it's a thick jungle. I can't believe he's making any real progress with a knife that needs sharpening a lot.

I enjoyed the characters in this story especially Jon. I also liked the events that happened in the jungle. However, the extra amount of monologue has me dropping a full star to give this book, 4 Stars.


3) Bloody But Unbowed is about Daryl ‘D-Day’ Geer and Dr. Emerson Winfield III. Terrorists have kidnapped Emerson, and it’s D-Day’s job to drop in on a one-man mission and rescue him. This was my least favorite of the books. These guys bickered constantly. Always competing to get the last word in and top the other with their snarky remarks. Personal taste, but I don’t find arguing pleasant reading. It doesn’t stop the two men from getting off in the middle of the jungle while they’re fleeing and Emerson screams at the top of his lungs during orgasm. I rolled my eyes. D-Day is stealthily leading them to the rendezvous spot yet they’re taking time to have sex and screaming in the jungle? This is another example of unprofessional behavior on the part of a member of a supposedly elite security team. No way would I consider Herc’s Mercs the best of the best. Every story had security breaches or misconduct the team knew they shouldn’t engage in.

An incident occurs after D-Day goes out on a mission after the rescue and he returns to Emerson, only to have Emerson yell at him because D-Day didn’t tell him how badly he was hurt. Instead of worrying about D-Day, Emerson made it all about him and how insulted he was because D-Day didn’t trust him. Emerson was completely wrong. D-Day was exhausted, and wanted to see Emerson, go home to where it was safe. Instead, he was greeted by accusations, a lack of understanding, and made to feel guilty. Someone D-Day trusted didn’t have his back. Emerson never apologized and expected D-Day to apologize. I’m sorry, but I totally disagree with the way this happened in the story. This scene feels like a betrayal to D-Day and I don’t understand why the authors set it up for only him to be the bad guy. Emerson was wrong. If he wanted to discuss the situation, he should have waited until D-Day had a rest.

This is my least favorite of the three stories. The two characters bickered constantly, and the sex scene with screaming in the middle of the jungle, as they’re trying to escape, was unbelievable. I didn’t like that Emerson always seemed to have to be right. The way he treated D-Day on his return was atrocious. Emerson was an unpleasant character, but D-Day wasn’t too bad even though he was a bit rough edged. I give this book, 2.5 Stars.


In the end, Book 1 is my favorite and Book 3 is my least favorite. I’ll average the stories together and unfortunately, the last book’s rating pulls down the other two by quite a lot. That averages to about 3.5 stars. But since GR doesn’t allow half stars and I enjoyed The Bigger They Come quite a bit and I liked Red and Jon in the second story, I’ll raise my rating to 4 Stars despite disliking Book Three.



I received this bookset from the authors for an honest and unbiased opinion. ( )