Review: War Games by Jess Anastasi

Posted on December 14, 2017December 12, 2017 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A- Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

War Games (Valiant Knox #4) by Jess Anastasi
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Valiant Knox #4
Pages: 320
Published by Entangled Publishing on December 3rd 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

When one of her pilots is shot down behind enemy lines, Lieutenant Theresa Brenner will stop at nothing to save her before she’s captured and tortured, even if it means being part of the dirtside team led by Colonel Cameron McAllister. Bren might respect the way the colonel commands his men, but she’ll never trust Cam—no matter how charming he is—because he was responsible for her brother’s death.

Colonel Cameron McAllister has a covert mission behind enemy lines to team with the Ilari rebels and overthrow the bloodthirsty dictator who’s torn their planet apart. The last thing he needs is to get sidetracked searching for a downed pilot, especially since it means having Lieutenant Theresa Brenner tag along. Not only doesn’t the frosty pilot have the ground game to keep up with his seasoned group, she’s a potential distraction with all those gorgeous blond curls of hers—and she might be just like her brother, whose foolhardiness got his men killed.

My Review:

The Scottish poet Robbie Burns is mostly famous for that once-per-year favorite, Auld Lang Syne. He’s also known for that saying about “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” Of course that one is usually translated into something more like contemporary English.

But there’s another phrase of Burns’ that came to mind when reading War Games. It’s the one that goes, “O wad some Power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!” Because a lot of the tension in War Games is because Colonel Cameron McAllister and Lieutenant Theresa Brenner have never seen each other as they really are, not in ten years of extremely tense “acquaintance”.

Instead, they see each other through the intermediary of a third person who is no longer around, but still standing between them – the Lieutenant’s brother Jordie, dead these ten years in the war that seems never to end between the space-faring and fairly liberal Alliance and the fundamentalist wacko-crazies that have infested the planet Ilari.

Jordie’s death was suicide-by-enemy-fire, and Theresa is certain that it’s all Cam’s fault, based on everything that Jordie told her about his last mission with Cam. Cam, on the other hand, is equally certain that Theresa must be every bit as much of a selfish screw-up as her late brother. He just can’t figure out how someone who must be a terrible soldier somehow managed to become CAFF (Commander of the Flying Forces) on the Valiant Knox.

They’ve managed to mostly avoid each other for years, but circumstances have finally placed them into a close contact that neither of them wants, or trusts.

The long war may finally be reaching its end phase. After the events in Cover Fire, the Alliance has an in with the planetary resistance forces. If the Alliance can figure out just what support they need, and can manage to get it to them, the Resistance has a chance at defeating the CSS before they export their brand of crazy off-planet.

Cam is scheduled to lead an undercover mission just as one of Theresa’s fighter pilots is forced to eject over enemy territory. She attaches herself and another pilot to Cam’s mission so that she can rescue her pilot while he contacts the rebels.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy. Or in this case, even survives contact with the ground. Of course it all goes pear-shaped. And when it does, Cam and Theresa are forced to work together, and to see the person the other really is, instead of seeing Jordie and his mess.

But old habits die hard, and old impressions die even harder. When the chips are all very much down, Cam screws up. He may be a hero, but it looks like he’s ended the war only to lose the peace.

Or at least his own.

Escape Rating A-: War Games is the final book in the Valiant Knox series. And it’s an absolutely marvelous ending. If you like science fiction space opera romance, this series is terrific from beginning to end. I’m not positive that you need to read it in strict order, but starting with this last book is definitely a no-go. As much as many of us like to skip to the end to see how things turn out, this book is much more fun if you know more about what it is that you want to find out the ending of!

The strength of this particular entry in the series rests on the two main characters, Theresa and Cam, and the chemistry between them as well as the mess that’s keeping them apart. They’ve worked at arm’s length (actually several arms’ lengths’) from each other for a long time. They are certain that they know all about each other, and definitely don’t like what they know.

Even though the reader can easily guess that Jordie Brenner was a less-than-reliable narrator of his own life, it makes sense that his kid sister would believe everything he said, especially in the wake of his death.

On the other hand, Cam McAllister is much too good of a soldier and commander to keep conflating Theresa with her brother, especially in light of the evidence of his own eyes and that of people he respects. It’s mostly his own guilt that keeps him from seeing the person in front of him instead of her dead brother, and he really should know better.

Their mission is a SNAFU from beginning to end, but it is not either of their faults. Murphy has clearly taken up residence on Ilari and everything that can go wrong absolutely does. But the things that go wrong fit right into the military parts of the scenario. The CSS may be run by fundamentalist whack-jobs, but that doesn’t mean that some of them are not effective soldiers, even if they are fighting in a bad cause.

So as the tension between Cam and Theresa shifts from dislike and mistrust to respect and possibly love, the circumstances they find themselves in go from bad, to worse, to downright awful. It takes a lot of mess to wrap the series up with the right amount of intense catharsis, but it does get there, and with an appropriately big and loud bang. Even though their relationship very nearly ends in a whimper.

One final note, as much as I enjoyed this series, I was also glad to see it end. While each romance has moved the overarching story forward, this war needed to come to its conclusion. If it had gone on forever and six books more, it ran the potential of getting stale. Instead, we end on a high note. The Valiant Knox series is a fun mixture of military SF, space opera and science fiction romance, and now that it’s finished it’s even easier to recommend to any reader looking for something good flying on any those vectors. Start with Escape Velocity for the very best ride.

Review: Cover Fire by Jess Anastasi + Giveaway

Posted on June 19, 2017June 18, 2017 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Cover Fire (Valiant Knox #3) by Jess Anastasi
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Valiant Knox #3
Pages: 333
Published by Entangled Publishing on June 19th 2017
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

He'll protect her with his life...but who will protect his heart?
If the assignment is crazy, dangerous, or a little of both, Sub-Lieutenant Sebastian Rayne can’t help but take on the challenge. So when Command Intelligence tags him to fly one of their agents behind enemy lines, it seems like just another routine death-defying mission. Crash landing on the planet was a piece of cake, but the gorgeous agent he delivered safely to her meeting is now believed dead and he must return to retrieve her body.
After Agent Jenna Maxwell realizes her own people attempted to have her killed, she enlists the hot stick jockey’s help. His new mission? Sneak her back onto his ship to ferret out who wanted to get rid of her and why. But she fears her growing feelings for Seb have blinded her to his reckless insistence on helping her stay alive, and his rash behavior will cause them both to lose their lives.

My Review:

Cover Fire is the third book in the Valiant Knox series, and it both lives up to its predecessors and takes the action in several new directions. If you like science fiction romance, start with Escape Velocity and jet right on over to Damage Control before jumping into Cover Fire. You’ll be glad you did.

And if you have a friend who likes military romance but is hesitant about the whole SF thing, this series is a terrific gateway drug for those who are thinking about trying SFR. It definitely has the flavor of military romance, but in setting that easily evokes contemporary military romance.

Because that Valiant Knox that the series is named for? She’s a battleship. She just happens to be a space battleship.

She’s also a floating city in space, much like a considerably less battered Battlestar Galactica, or a Babylon 5 that does more than just orbit a planet.

While the previous two stories in this series have focused more on the military side of the military police action to embargo the planet Ilari and its fanatic CSS soldiers, Cover Fire is all about the truly dirty side of war. Not black ops, but much, much dirtier. Jenna Maxwell is a member of Command Intelligence. She’s a spy, an infiltrator, and on occasion, assassin.

And somebody on her own side wants her dead. The question in her mind is whether she did something wrong that CI thinks needs to be “cleaned up”, or whether someone in CI is a mole for the CSS. All too many CSS moles have been uncovered among the crew of the Valiant Knox, so there’s plenty of reasons to believe that CI might have some too, in spite of the extreme vetting its agents go through on their way in.

That’s where our story begins. Hot-shot pilot Sebastian Rayne is still reeling after the revelation that his best friend was a CSS mole all along. They were best buds for years, and Seb never noticed a thing. He’s still kicking himself, and questioning his own judgment at every turn.

And taking suicide missions, like the one he’s offered to drop Jenna behind enemy lines on Ilari, the enemy stronghold, in a top-secret mission using a POS stolen CSS space shuttle. Of course the whole thing goes FUBAR. There was a damn good reason that shuttle didn’t look spaceworthy. It wasn’t.

But in their enforced togetherness while running from the wreck and escaping the CSS soldiers sent to investigate, Jenna and Seb have a little too much time to spend together. Just enough for Seb to notice that the tough-as-nails exterior doesn’t always match the woman who begins to question, just a little, whether her lonely, dark place in the underbelly of this war is worth the price she has to pay for it.

And just when both their missions seem to be back on track, Jenna is betrayed by her own side, and Seb is sent to pick up the pieces – pieces that are supposed to include Jenna’s body. Instead, he finds a live, scared and pissed off Jenna who has been forced to expose her real appearance, because that’s the only face that CI doesn’t have on file.

Jenna needs Seb’s help to track the reasons for her would-be assassination. And she needs Seb to remind her that the lonely life of a field agent is no life at all. And Seb needs Jenna to help him find closure for the biggest betrayal of his life.

But there is someone gunning for them both. Whether that’s CI, a CSS mole, or a player to be named later is anyone’s guess. But running for their lives together is the best thing that’s ever happened to both of them.

And it might just turn the tide of the war.

Escape Rating B+: I always have a great time aboard the Valiant Knox – or flying around it. But as much as I like the stories and the setting, I’m still not totally clear on the motivations of the CSS. They come off as “standard evil repressive fundamentalist cult” which is a common trope but doesn’t give me enough.

It also, as this story discovers, isn’t enough for some of its adherents. The CSS claims they want independence to go about their evil, repressive ways, but they may not be the only dog in this fight. We’ll see. That possibility gives me very high hopes for subsequent books in this series.

But about Cover Fire. All the stories in this series, so far, have dealt with forbidden romances in one way or another, and this one is no exception. Unlike the standard trope of the fighter pilot jock, Seb is not out to notch his bedpost. He is much more interested in a real relationship, or at least trying for one. And as much as he comes to want Jenna, as long as she believes that she has to run, he’s not after just a one-night-stand, no matter how he wants her.

He’s also going through a lot of self-doubt after the exposure of his friend as a CSS mole. He’s not sure what he feels, or with Jenna, who he feels it for. She turns her CI mask on and off like flipping a switch. Meanwhile, Jenna isn’t sure not just what she feels, but who she really is and whether she has a life expectancy longer than a few hours. She thinks her own organization is out to get her, and they are very, very effective at tying up loose ends.

Any relationship between them is the ultimate distraction from the effort to find out who ordered the hits and to keep them both alive long enough to expose the rot. There are plenty of times when that effort seems doomed, and often by their own mistakes.

I’ll admit that I did figure out whodunnit quite a bit before the end. I had the motives wrong, but the perpetrator seemed obvious, and was. Which didn’t decrease my enjoyment of the story and the series one iota.

I can’t wait to see what happens next. In the somewhat ominously titled War Games, coming out later this year.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Flying Through Fire by Nina Croft

Posted on November 9, 2016November 8, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Flying Through Fire by Nina Croft
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Dark Desires #6, Blood Hunter #6
Pages: 299
Published by Entangled Publishing on November 7th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo
Goodreads

Winged monsters have been seen in the skies, and a pestilence follows in their wake, threatening the very survival of mankind. Only the crew of the Blood Hunter knows where they come from, and only one man has the power to send them back—Thorne, a human/dragon hybrid in possession of mental powers beyond comprehension.
Candace Decker doesn’t need anyone to look after her—she’s a badass werewolf more than capable of protecting herself and those she loves. All the same, she’s always been drawn to Thorne’s strength. In an uncertain world, he’s the one man who makes her feel safe. And what Candy wants, she usually gets.
But while Candy is tenacious, Thorne’s willpower has been honed over ten thousand years. He might want her, but the last thing he needs is an infatuation with a young, impetuous werewolf. Candy makes him lose control, and that could have disastrous consequences.
As the threat escalates and they become separated by time and space, Candy must find a way back to him, because while Thorne alone has the power to defeat the dragons, only together can they finally bring peace to the universe.

My Review:

I liked this series a whole lot better before they started playing with the “timey-wimey” bits.

Which is not to say that I didn’t like Flying through Fire, because I did. But it just wasn’t nearly as much sheer fun as the expanded edition of Break Out and Deadly Pursuit, the first two books in the series.

But it’s still fun.

Part of what makes this series so interesting is the way that it explores and plays havoc with paranormal romance. Rico Sanchez, the hero of Break Out and the prime mover of much of the action in the entire series, is a vampire. And not a new vampire, either. Rico died his first death in Spain during the Inquisition, in the 15th century on old Earth. It’s now somewhere in the 3000s, and Rico is still very much alive. When the Terrans fled the dying earth centuries ago, they brought all the things that went bump in the night along for the ride, albeit unwittingly.

The werewolves are still around too, Jonathan Decker, the hero of Deadly Pursuit, is a werewolf. And so is his daughter Candace, the heroine of Flying through Fire. But vampires and werewolves aren’t the only apex predators around. And that’s where the fun comes in. Thorne, the immortal hero of this story, is well on his way to becoming a dragon. And he’s not sure what to do about it.

Especially since Candy Decker set her sights on Thorne long ago, probably even before she knew what it was she wanted from him. But Thorne is afraid to let himself feel anything at all. He’s sure that if he lets loose of his control, all the power that he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t have is going to come out and bite him in the ass.

He’s sure he’s not right for Candy. She’s only 24, and he’s on his 10th millennia. That’s one hell of an age gap.

Thorne keeps saying that he’s going to leave Candy and the crew of the Blood Hunter behind him, and settle down somewhere far away, safe and boring.

Until the rest of the dragons come back to the galaxy, and start wiping out whole worlds to get back the one person who can either save them, or destroy them. It’s up to Thorne and the crew of the Blood Hunter to make sure that humanity, at least some form of it, survives.

Sometimes, love really can conquer all. Even when that all is a gigantic beast that can fly between the stars.

Escape Rating B: There are two stories in Flying through Fire. One is obviously the come-here/go-away romance between Thorne and Candy. It’s not really the age gap keeping them apart, it’s that they are both being idiots in completely different ways. (And their mutual idiocy is sometimes a bit predictable, and drives the reader, or at least this reader, a bit crazy) Candy has a lot of problems with impulse control, and boatload of abandonment issues, and at least some of her love for Thorne has a sizable amount of hero worship in it. In Candy’s strange life, with her parents time traveling and saving the universe, there have been too many points where Thorne was the only stable presence in her life, even when she resisted his protection.

Thorne has been alone for far too long. Through a bad accident of time travel, literally millennia. There have always been other people around, but Thorne has always been the one in charge, with no one to share the burden. He’s emotionally closed off, because that was the only way to survive.

Candy wants to bring him out of his self-imposed shell. Which someone really, really needs to do. He needs her lightness as much as she needs his steadiness. Immortality is boring. But it takes another bit of accidental time travel for them to finally be in the right place at the right time together.

The other part of this story is the culmination of the political situation set up in the previous books. Over the course of the series, the secular human governmental structures have all collapsed, leaving the extremely fanatical Church of Everlasting Life in seemingly everlasting ascendance. Until the dragons come back and wipe the slate clean on their way to wiping out humanity. Once all the threats are dealt with, someone will have to stick around and pick up the pieces.

The story in Flying through Fire brings this saga full circle. At the beginning of Break Out, it was just Rico and the crew of the Blood Hunter roaming the galaxy looking for trouble. When Flying through Fire ends, we’re back to Rico and the crew of the Blood Hunter, albeit with a few staffing changes, roaming the galaxy and looking for trouble. I hope they find it, because this series has been a marvelous and wild rocket ride.

Review: Quantum by Jess Anastasi

Posted on August 26, 2016August 25, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B+ Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Quantum (Atrophy, #2) by Jess Anastasi
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Atrophy #2
Pages: 325
Published by Entangled Publishing on August 8th 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

Someone wants Captain Admiral Zander Graydon dead. Like yesterday. Zander’s convinced his attractive assistant knows more than she’s willing to say, and if he can stop running long enough, he’ll find out exactly what she’s hiding. Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros is determined to keep her CO safe. Before she tips her hand, however, Mae has to figure out if the alluring man she’s protecting is the real Captain Admiral Graydon. Or an alien shape-shifting imposter.
On the run and no one to trust…not even each other.
Captain Admiral Zander Graydon has seen a lot of action, but almost getting killed three times in one day is pushing it. Only the company of his new assistant, Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros, makes things a little easier to swallow. Except the delectable Lieutenant Marshal Petros is hiding a number of secrets, and her presence might have something to do with the continued attempts on his life.
It’s no accident Lieutenant Marshal Mae Petros finds herself in the firing line alongside the charming but very off-limits Captain Admiral Graydon. She’s taken the job as the admiral’s assistant to determine if a shape-shifting alien has killed the CO and assumed his form. Whether the admiral is human or not, Mae finds herself getting way too close to him as they run for their lives.
Military to the core, Mae and Zander will have to overcome their suspicions of each other to work together, when they realize the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

My Review:

If you are bemoaning the lack of Firefly in your life, take heart. Quantum and the Atrophy universe are here to fill that Serenity-shaped void in your heart. Get ready for a wild ride on the Imojenna with Rian Sherron, as well as a heart-stopping adventure following Zander Graydon and Mae Petros as they dodge shipwrecks and shape-shifting aliens to stay alive.

At the beginning, it feels like there are two stories here. One is almost a classic survival tale. Someone is out to kill Zander Graydon. They just keep missing. Well, almost missing. Whoever it is doesn’t have any qualms about collateral damage. But then, the shapeshifting alien Reider think we are about as intelligent as chimpanzees, or maybe less. Alien scientists don’t care how many lab rat equivalents they kill on their way to global domination.

But as Zander thwarts an assassination attempt in a public bathroom, followed by a clearly engineered shuttle crash followed by a missile strike, it’s hard for him not to get the message that someone is out to get him. The problem is that he’s not sure if that person isn’t his new Admiral’s Assistant, Mae Petros. He knows that Mae is keeping some big secret from him, he just doesn’t know what that secret is.

Mae is on a mission – not for any of the human military agencies, but for Rian Sherron, the leader of a motley crew of space salvagers, on a one man mission to eradicate the shapeshifting aliens from our galaxy. Rian saw his old buddy Zander’s name on a list of potential Reider swap-targets, and Rian wants to get there first.

Instead, Mae gets there just in time to help Zander survive those repeated Reidar assassination attempts. And to fall for the man she’s still worried might be an alien copy. Not that he trusts her either.

And just when they think they are out of the woods, literally as well as figuratively, it all goes pear-shaped. And stays that way until Mae, Zander and Rian can finally join forces. Just in time to turn Rian’s one-man crusade into a little fleet of berserkers set to finally take a little bit of this battle to the enemy. If they can just figure out who they are.

Escape Rating B+: At first it seems as if this story is only tangentially related to the one in the first book, Atrophy. But when the band gets together, the single narrative becomes much clearer. So definitely read Atrophy first.

Quantum itself almost feels like two books. The first half, the crash and rescue, is one story that could have ended on one hell of a cliffhanger. The second story really gets going when Zander and Mae finally make their way to Rian’s Imojenna. The story switches from a fairly tight, fall in love under threat of death story to the much broader arc of the series, which is a story about taking back the galaxy from the alien infiltration. That bit is going to take several books to resolve, and we only see the first real skirmish here.

We also see a lot more of Rian Sherron’s tortured relationship with the priestess/sorceress Ella. She’s clearly this universe’s Inara Serra, although I think we will finally get to see where that relationship would have gone if the series had continued. Eventually. In the meantime, we see a lot of Rian’s demons and Ella’s attempts to, if not exorcise them, at least calm them down a bit. She’s only partially successful at the best of times.

And now for a couple of little quibbles. I mentioned in my review of Atrophy that the use of made-up profanity takes me out of the story every time. It’s not just that “frecking” does not feel like a reasonable substitute for “fucking” as profanity, but that the change sounds wrong to my ear, especially when used in the profane combination of “frecking Christ”. This is not a comment on religion or the lack thereof, but if “Christ” has survived the centuries as an epithet, then so have the words “fuck” and “fucking”. Especially in the context where “shite”, currently used in the UK and Ireland for “shit” has also survived the ages. People do cuss. Let them.

Second quibble. Military titles. It would feel less jarring if the author had either used something completely made up, and provided a glossary, or used what we have now, on a reasonable extension that military ranks serve a purpose. Weird combinations like “Captain Admiral” and “Lieutenant Marshall” dropped me out of the story every time, and confused me as well. Where does a Lieutenant Marshal fit into the hierarchy? Is it like a Lieutenant in the military, or Marshal as in Sheriff?

Which did not stop me from licking the whole damn thing up with a spoon. I enjoy this series as much for what it is trying to be as what it actually is. But then, I really do miss Firefly. And since there’s no more Firefly, I’ll be waiting eagerly for book 3 in the Atrophy series, Diffraction, hopefully before the end of the year!