Helpful Score: 7
A can't-put-down book.
A sassy heroine and an alpha hero. What a fabulous combination.
This book pulls you in and is a great page turner.
The hero is in the protect mode and fights falling in love every minute. The heroine won't let him off the hook.
The book is hard, fast, tough, sexy, poignant and a fanstastic read.
One of the best books I've read this year!
A sassy heroine and an alpha hero. What a fabulous combination.
This book pulls you in and is a great page turner.
The hero is in the protect mode and fights falling in love every minute. The heroine won't let him off the hook.
The book is hard, fast, tough, sexy, poignant and a fanstastic read.
One of the best books I've read this year!
Helpful Score: 4
Cindy Gerard is very good author and her romantic suspense series are a good blend of military and covert operations actions, romance, and really, really bad guys.
The Black Ops series is a continuation of characters mentioned in her Bodyguard Series.
I really enjoyed this story of Gabe Jones and his chance to find some normalcy and love.
Highly recommend if you like the special forces/action/romance books.
The Black Ops series is a continuation of characters mentioned in her Bodyguard Series.
I really enjoyed this story of Gabe Jones and his chance to find some normalcy and love.
Highly recommend if you like the special forces/action/romance books.
Helpful Score: 3
This book features two characters dealing with various emotional scars, who are forced to team up to combat not only external forces, but also their own inner demons.
Jenna is a hotshot, globe-trotting reporter who is struggling to come to terms with an event that left her questioning, on very fundamental levels, who is she and if she'll ever be able to reclaim her sense of self.
Gabriel is a man scarred both physically and emotionally. A true alpha male in every sense of the term, he is take charge and intensely focused and skilled in matters of combat. He is also dealing with a profound loss, and extreme guilt and anger that have left him closed off emotionally.
While less capable authors would take the aforementioned factors and use them to create a novel that is little more than unrelieved melancholy and characters who are (voluntarily or otherwise) self-centered, Gerard allows her characters to be very real, in terms of being simultaneously flawed and honorable, grief-stricken and truly funny and snarky.
As Jenna and Gabe grow closer (whether they like it or not), their romance does not in any way take away from the action and danger, and the almost palpable suspense, and the reverse holds true, as well. What the reader is left with, then, is a novel that is equal parts action and romance, which is a rarity this day and age, as all too often authors allow one aspect or the other to languish undeveloped or virtually ignored while the other receives most of the attention.
Fortunately, Cindy Gerard has proven that she is adept at handling everything from explosions and gunfights, to passionate love scenes and intensely emotional conversations. This is a very well-written book that is a truly great kickoff to what promises to be a fantastic new series.
**Gabe & Jenna's story begins in Cindy Gerard's book "Into the Dark". To better understand their history, I would suggest reading that book first.**
Jenna is a hotshot, globe-trotting reporter who is struggling to come to terms with an event that left her questioning, on very fundamental levels, who is she and if she'll ever be able to reclaim her sense of self.
Gabriel is a man scarred both physically and emotionally. A true alpha male in every sense of the term, he is take charge and intensely focused and skilled in matters of combat. He is also dealing with a profound loss, and extreme guilt and anger that have left him closed off emotionally.
While less capable authors would take the aforementioned factors and use them to create a novel that is little more than unrelieved melancholy and characters who are (voluntarily or otherwise) self-centered, Gerard allows her characters to be very real, in terms of being simultaneously flawed and honorable, grief-stricken and truly funny and snarky.
As Jenna and Gabe grow closer (whether they like it or not), their romance does not in any way take away from the action and danger, and the almost palpable suspense, and the reverse holds true, as well. What the reader is left with, then, is a novel that is equal parts action and romance, which is a rarity this day and age, as all too often authors allow one aspect or the other to languish undeveloped or virtually ignored while the other receives most of the attention.
Fortunately, Cindy Gerard has proven that she is adept at handling everything from explosions and gunfights, to passionate love scenes and intensely emotional conversations. This is a very well-written book that is a truly great kickoff to what promises to be a fantastic new series.
**Gabe & Jenna's story begins in Cindy Gerard's book "Into the Dark". To better understand their history, I would suggest reading that book first.**
Helpful Score: 2
So...not that good of a book. or impressive...or original...
Pretty much reads like other contemporary (B-grade) romantic suspense. *sigh* Reading so many books just like this one is what pushes my interest right out of the genre.
the story seems to be only half told...I kept thinking there was so much he author wasn't telling us, or explaining. so much so that I sort of feel gipped. There's also some inconsisiteneices in character development... For example, while we spent a good amount of time in the Heroine's head, the Hero didn't do much introspection... which made it harder to like or even know him..
We also get only bits and pieces and impressions of the H and h's first meeting, the book pretty much skips to the here and now.
And there's a secondary storyline that I wasn't terribly interested in...mostly becuase I didn't like the secondary female character. (she and another minor character have their own story going, but it doesn't end at the end of this novel, I'm assumig they'll either get their own, or it will be tied in throughout the series)... Luckily though it didn't take too much space up.
Also, and this may just be me , so please feel free to correct me If I'm wrong, , but It seems in many of Ms Gerard's books the heroine has to do all the (emotional) work/chasing of the Hero... Makes it hard to really like any of them.
And as for the action aspect... Well men who've been fighting as long as the guys in this book have, I expected more from them than the ability to use their weapons... As far as strategizing and forward planning... meh I wasn't impressed... I actually found myself wondering how they managed to stay alive so long.
On the positive side, it only took me a day and half to read this one... And with the exception I mentioned before, I like the secondary characters...If I can get copies of the others in the series, I'll read them, but I doubt any will be going on my permamnent shelf.
Pretty much reads like other contemporary (B-grade) romantic suspense. *sigh* Reading so many books just like this one is what pushes my interest right out of the genre.
the story seems to be only half told...I kept thinking there was so much he author wasn't telling us, or explaining. so much so that I sort of feel gipped. There's also some inconsisiteneices in character development... For example, while we spent a good amount of time in the Heroine's head, the Hero didn't do much introspection... which made it harder to like or even know him..
We also get only bits and pieces and impressions of the H and h's first meeting, the book pretty much skips to the here and now.
And there's a secondary storyline that I wasn't terribly interested in...mostly becuase I didn't like the secondary female character. (she and another minor character have their own story going, but it doesn't end at the end of this novel, I'm assumig they'll either get their own, or it will be tied in throughout the series)... Luckily though it didn't take too much space up.
Also, and this may just be me , so please feel free to correct me If I'm wrong, , but It seems in many of Ms Gerard's books the heroine has to do all the (emotional) work/chasing of the Hero... Makes it hard to really like any of them.
And as for the action aspect... Well men who've been fighting as long as the guys in this book have, I expected more from them than the ability to use their weapons... As far as strategizing and forward planning... meh I wasn't impressed... I actually found myself wondering how they managed to stay alive so long.
On the positive side, it only took me a day and half to read this one... And with the exception I mentioned before, I like the secondary characters...If I can get copies of the others in the series, I'll read them, but I doubt any will be going on my permamnent shelf.
Helpful Score: 1
It would have been better had I read her other series before I read this.
I give her high marks for the ending--not a perfect HEA.
I give her high marks for the ending--not a perfect HEA.
