Very good military romantic suspense. Black ops test pilots were a believable extrapolation. Sometimes authors make stuff/black ops groups up in order to tell their stories and some of them work better than others. This one worked well. The action was believable. Bad guys were well drawn with clear motivations. I like both the hero and the heroine. He was a tortured soul without wallowing in it. She was a gutsy girl trying to live life to the fullest. The dialog was good. The romance was believable. The love scenes were integral to the plot and not just extraneous sex like in some of these types of books. Good clear cut action without excess wordiness or wallowing around in the characters thoughts. Plenty of guys in the crew for future books and an interesting subplot that should be a book later. The subplot was well rounded without distracting from the main story/romance. ( )

Defender
2 Stars

On a mission in Turkey to locate a fellow teammate, Air Force Test Pilot, Jimmy Gage, is pulled away to aid in the rescue of a USO troupe whose boat has exploded in the Mediterranean Sea. Angry and frustrated, Jimmy doesn’t exactly hit it off with singer, Chloe Nelson, but she gets under his skin nonetheless, and they soon find themselves in the thick of an investigation into kidnapped service men.

The book begins well with Jimmy’s ordeal in Afghanistan and the high seas rescue, but things take a turn for the worse with the introduction of several additional POVs and plotlines that make it virtually impossible to connect with any of the characters and slows the pacing significantly.

Chloe is an engaging heroine with a tremendous zest for life while Jimmy is rather serious and tortured. These traits have the potential for an excellent opposites attract romance. Unfortunately, it falls flat as they have zero chemistry and their dialogue is stilted. Jimmy’s PTSD lacks emotional impact and his nicknames for Chloe come across as condescending rather than cute. While the illness and recovery theme might be suitable for dramatic women’s fiction, it is out of place in romantic suspense.

The abduction storyline is interesting enough, but the villains come across as cheesy, one dimensional cartoon-like baddies. The secondary characters have their moments, such as the burgeoning romance between the CIA agent and the villain’s niece as well as the terrible suffering of the kidnapped officer. That said, neither is sufficiently compelling to continue with the series.

All in all, there are better military themed romantic suspense series to read on a rainy day. ( )

Awesome book! Action packed. Kept my interest. Loved the characters and the way they talked to each other. Will definitely be reading the rest of the series. ( )

My excitement kind of crashed out with this one. I'm a huge fan of military romantic-suspense, so I was hoping that this would give me new series to read. Unfortunately, I wasn't really impressed.

There were far too many POV's to keep up with, and they dragged the story down. There wasn't nearly enough time spent on Chloe and Gage, which was extremely disappointing.

I really didn't start enjoying this book until the last 25%....when things finally started to come together and heat up. Still, the plot was chaotic and more passion was definitely needed. ( )