Guest Post by Susannah Sandlin + Giveaway

Posted on April 15, 2016April 14, 2016 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

I’d like to welcome Susannah Sandlin, also known as and writing as Suzanne Johnson, back to Reading Reality! Because I always love her books, I usually jump on the chance to get a guest post from Susannah whenever she has a book on tour, whatever name it happens to be written under. If you like urban fantasy, start with Royal Street, the first book in her Sentinels of New Orleans series as Suzanne Johnson. If you prefer paranormal romance, visit the vampires of Pentonville in Redemption, the first book in her Penton Legacy series as Susannah Sandlin. And if you prefer your romantic suspense to be more-or-less firmly grounded in the real world, you can’t do better than starting with today’s review book, Wild Man’s Curse.

And now, here’s Susannah to talk about her turn to the fully-human side of the romantic force!

In Praise of the Human

by Susannah Sandlin

Most—okay, all—of my early work was paranormal in nature—urban fantasy as Suzanne Johnson and paranormal romance as Susannah Sandlin. So when, under my Susannah Sandlin pen name, I branched out into romantic suspense, I feared it might be hard to “go human.”

I’d had a taste of it in my standalone STORM FORCE, where I had a team of former Army Rangers and shifters of various species working together to solve a case of domestic terrorism. In that case, I had to find a way to make my human Ranger hero, Kell, be able to hold equal ground with the shifters who report to him and the heroine, Mori, who isn’t exactly human herself.

It was that book that convinced me I could do romantic suspense. The plots of my Susannah Sandlin paranormals have always been fast-paced and conflict-driven—I’ve called them paranormal romantic thrillers in the past—so the only difference between the books I’d written in the past and the romantic suspense novels was the absence of paranormal elements.

Even the characters aren’t so different. In a good paranormal, the characters are complex. My Penton vampires have ugly pasts, dark secrets, deep emotional wounds—the same things my human heroes have (well, minus fangs and a very high-protein liquid diet). They’re as vulnerable as humans in some ways—a vampire caught in the daylight can’t defend himself, of if he’s found during his daysleep. Humans are omniphotounsensitive. (Yeah, I made up that word.)

Except even in my romantic suspense novels, I’ve never quite been able to get completely away from mystical elements. My first romantic suspense, LOVELY, DARK, AND DEEP, dealt with a relic stolen from the Knights Templar, whose lost treasure is one of the world’s great mysteries. The second, DEADLY, CALM, AND COLD, tackled the mystery of the Royal Crown Jewels lost by England’s Bad King John (of Robin Hood fame) shortly before his death in the 13th century—were they stolen by a monk? By his entourage? Stashed away for safekeeping before the landowners could have him dethroned?

When it came time to plot the first book in my new series following a team of Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries enforcement agents—think badass game wardens—I knew I had great alpha hero potential and could create complex heroes and heroines similar to those of my paranormal books. But again, I had to bring in a touch of the mystical.

In the case of WILD MAN’S CURSE, it’s the voodoo and Native American mystical elements that come into play. It’s never a given as to whether the rituals of the voodoo practitioner Eva Savoie and her great-niece, heroine Celestine Savoie, are true—but they are true to those characters. And since Celestine is part Chitimacha, a Native American tribe indigenous to South Louisiana, she brings some of their mysticism into play as well. Does it qualify as a paranormal element? In a way, I suppose. Although Eva and Celestine are certainly human, their beliefs help define them and strengthen them—as all belief systems do. And the fact that the villain in the novel fears Celestine’s beliefs, even if he doesn’t share them, gives her an advantage.

Strong heroes, smart heroines, cool stories. It’s what I try to imbue in each of my books, whether the characters are wizards, vampires, shifters, undead pirates—or completely human!

About the Author:

Susannah Sandlin is the author of the award-winning Penton Vampire Legacy paranormal romance series, including the 2013 Holt Medallion Award-winning Absolution and Omega and Allegiance, which were nominated for the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice Award in 2014 and 2015, respectively. She also writers The Collectors romantic suspense series, including Lovely, Dark, and Deep, 2015 Holt Medallion winner and 2015 Booksellers Best Award winner. Her new series Wilds of the Bayou starts in 2016 with the April 5 release of Wild Man’s Curse. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, Susannah is the author of the award-winning Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. A displaced New Orleanian, she currently lives in Auburn, Alabama. Susannah loves SEC football, fried gator on a stick, all things Cajun, and redneck reality TV.Web: http://www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com
Blog: http://www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com/blog
Newsletter: http://www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com/newsletter
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSusannahSandlin
Twitter: @SusannahSandlin
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/Susannah_Sandlin
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/sj3523/

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

As part of this tour, Susannah is giving away one(1) $50 Amazon gift card and five (5) $10 Amazon gift cards to lucky participants in this tour!

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Guest Post by Suzanne Johnson on Pirate Love + Giveaway

Posted on May 1, 2015April 30, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | Giveaways> Guest Posts

I’m not sure whether I love reading about romantic pirates in general, as the author asks in her guest post, but I am certain that I enjoy reading about her pirate in particular. Suzanne Johnson has turned the legend of Jean Lafitte into a fascinating and enigmatic character who always has his finger in too many pies.

After having read her entire Sentinels of New Orleans series so far (check out today’s review of Pirate’s Alley) I will say that in this case, Lafitte is a much better bet for our heroine than any of the dogs who have been, sometimes literally, sniffing around her. Read this awesome urban fantasy series for yourself and see if you agree!

Pirate Love
by Suzanne Johnson

When I introduced the early 19th-century pirate Jean Lafitte in the very opening scene of my Sentinels of New Orleans series, I had no intention of making him a major character. But the more I learned about him, the more fascinated I became—and I was thrilled when readers became enamored of my French pirate as well (he was my pirate by then), because it meant I had good reason to keep him in subsequent books.

But why? I mean, I’d like to say it’s Jean Lafitte himself and my incorporation of him into an urban fantasy—he was, after all, an enigmatic and mysterious figure. Tall and striking in appearance, reasonably well educated and exceptionally smart, with a sly and playful sense of humor, a natural leader, at home with New Orleans society and equally at home with the ruffians living in the bayous of Barataria.

He was also a smuggler at a time when piracy carried a death sentence, a man who didn’t hesitate to use violence if he felt it was needed, an arrogant man who flouted his intelligence and wealth over those he considered inferiors (i.e., most bureaucrats), a devious man.

But it’s not Lafitte, as much as I love him. It’s our fascination with pirates. There’s a whole romance subgenre built around pirates from a century or two earlier than Jean Lafitte—who really was the last great pirate of the Caribbean. (The legions of fans of the Disney “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise might or might not be fans of Johnny Depp’s sexily goofy Jack Sparrow; they are fans, however, of pirates.)

So what is it about pirates women love? They are perhaps the ultimate alpha male, and while we might not like alphas that much in real life, we do love them in our romance novels, right?

Alpha males are independent and, yeah, more than a tad bossy. Well, the fictional pirates we love are all that and more. We don’t, after all, daydream about the dude who’s swabbing the deck—we want the CAPTAIN of the pirates. He’s the one bad boy to rule them all, to borrow a phrase. He stands at the helm of the ship, riding the open waves while everyone hustles to avoid his wrath at the same time they respect him because he treats them fairly and pays them well.

The wind whips through his (enticingly long) hair, the breeze ruffles his (enticingly half-open) shirt that billows over his (enticingly tight) trousers. Other ships flee him. He’s confident, smart, daring, and has an (enticingly overactive) libido—but only when he crosses paths with the right woman.

Who might be us, of course, living vicariously through the heroine.

Alpha males though they might be, pirates had a moral code, by all accounts. In the village of pirates that sprang up around his (enticingly lavish) two-story home in the Baratarian swamps south of New Orleans, Jean Lafitte tolerated gambling and even allowed a few ladies of the evening to ply their wares. But any of his men accused of rape were sailed far, far, far offshore and set adrift without provisions.

Pirates were also (enticingly) hard to catch—not only for the authorities, but for women. They enjoy a woman’s company but they are too independent to become a love-stricken sap. Until, of course they cross paths with the (enticingly sassy and independent) right woman.

Who might be us, of course, living vicariously through the heroine.

So yeah, we romanticize the things we like about historical pirates—their independence and general badassitude—while ignoring the ugly parts like murder and brutality and the sheer discomfort of a life at sea, on the run.

Modern pirates? They’re armed with AK47s, prey on innocent people, and commit murder for money. They’re from places like Somalia rather than England and France. We do not romanticize them; will women three centuries now look back on them with the same lust, er, I mean fondness we have for the pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries?

Who knows? Till then, give me a bad boy with a cutlass and a bottle of rum any old day. How about you? Do you like reading about romantic pirates, or are they too alpha for you?

About the Author:Suzanne Johnson writes urban fantasy and paranormal fiction from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual. She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick.Writing as Susannah Sandlin, she also is the author of the best-selling Penton Legacy paranormal romance series and The Collectors romantic thriller series. Elysian Fields, book three in the Sentinels of New Orleans series, won the 2014 Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence while her Sandlin-penned novel, Allegiance, is nominated for a 2015 Reviewer’s Choice Award from RT Book Reviews magazine.
Website: http://www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Suzanne_Johnson
FB: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorSuzanneJohnson

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Suzanne is generously giving away 1 $50 Amazon gift card and 2 $15 Amazon gift cards to lucky winners.

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Review: Pirate’s Alley by Suzanne Johnson

Posted on May 1, 2015April 30, 2015 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | A Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the publisher via Edelweiss
Formats available: hardcover, ebook
Genre: urban fantasy
Series: Sentinels of New Orleans #4
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Date Released: April 21, 2015
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Book Depository

Wizard sentinel DJ Jaco thought she had gotten used to the chaos of her life in post-Katrina New Orleans, but a new threat is looming, one that will test every relationship she holds dear.

Caught in the middle of a rising struggle between the major powers in the supernatural world—the Wizards, Elves, Vampires and the Fae—DJ finds her loyalties torn and her mettle tested in matters both professional and personal.

Her relationship with enforcer Alex Warin is shaky, her non-husband, Quince Randolph, is growing more powerful, and her best friend, Eugenie, has a bombshell that could blow everything to Elfheim and back. And that’s before the French pirate, Jean Lafitte, newly revived from his latest “death,” returns to New Orleans with vengeance on his mind. DJ’s assignment? Keep the sexy leader of the historical undead out of trouble. Good luck with that.

Duty clashes with love, loyalty with deception, and friendship with responsibility as DJ navigates passion and politics in the murky waters of a New Orleans caught in the grips of a brutal winter that might have nothing to do with Mother Nature.

War could be brewing, and DJ will be forced to take a stand. But choosing sides won’t be that easy.

My Review:

Pirate’s Alley, like all of the titles in Suzanne Johnson’s Sentinels of New Orleans series, is a street in New Orleans. In this particular case, Pirate’s Alley is a two-block-long pedestrian walkway between Royal Street and Jackson Square, at least according to Google maps and Google street view.

As a title, it also represents some of the events in the story. From Sentinel Drusilla Jaco’s perspective, it looks a lot like her own particular pirate, the historically undead Jean Lafitte, is building either a coalition or perhaps an army of preternaturals in the same way he build his pirate army in his real life. He takes on the dispossessed and the disaffected, and gives them a home and something to believe in.

It worked in the early 19th century, and it looks like it works just as well in the early 21st century.

In New Orleans, the boundary between what we call the “real” world and the Beyond was always thin. But Katrina reduced that thin (and always a bit permeable) line to absolutely nothing. And the powers-that-be, in this case the Wizard’s Council, have decided to make a virtue out of necessity and remove both the physical barrier and the rules and regulations that have kept the preternaturals out of the city, or hidden, for centuries.

New Orleans has become again what it has always been, an living experiment in extreme multiculturalism. Only in this case, it’s the wizards and the shapeshifters and the two-natured and the vampires and the elves and the fae and New Orleans own special part of this mixture – the historical undead.

After the events in the first three books, Royal Street (reviewed here), River Road (here) and Elysian Fields (here), the preternatural community is gearing up, or winding down, to one big and probably deadly showdown.

The events in Pirate’s Alley all center around that upcoming conflict, with Sentinel DJ Jaco, as usual, caught squarely in the middle.

Pirate’s Alley is much more about political maneuvering than any deeds of derring-do, not that there aren’t some of those. Most of the action takes place at the several attempts to hold an Interspecies Council Meeting, and all the various and sundry ways that meeting keeps getting interrupted, hijacked and or just plain destroyed. Unfortunately along with the building it’s being held in.

It seems as though every single faction has an internal conflict, one that is being fought both at the Council table and in bloody assassinations back at home. And DJ is firmly stuck in the middle of every single one of those conflicts, whether she wants to be or not.

DJ is a member of the Wizards Council, and as Sentinel, she is supposed to be working for them. Which is ok until they ask her to do something that she finds not just questionable, but downright morally repugnant. So she not only refuses to obey, but finds a way to outmaneuver her boss.

Her boyfriend Alex Warin can’t make up his mind or heart whether to help DJ or obey the Council. They are his boss too, and he’s a good little soldier who generally obeys orders.

DJ’s elven bondmate is trying to get DJ to live up to the bond he forced her into, and to take control of his own faction, attempting to use DJ as leverage, bait or muscle as it suits him. It does not suit her.

The only person who seems to understand DJ and want to help her do what she thinks is right is Jean Lafitte, the leader of the historical undead and DJ’s enemy turned friend. It’s not that Jean is altruistic, because he never is, but that he sees and likes DJ exactly as she is, and pretty much vice versa. DJ isn’t totally sure how she feels about Lafitte, but she knows he has her back.

Which is a good thing, because when the dust settles Lafitte’s Barataria estate in undead Old Orleans may be the only safe place for DJ to retreat to. With the fires of all her burnt bridges blazing behind her.

Escape Rating A-: As much as I loved this one, I will say that the politics are starting to get extremely convoluted. I hope that book 5 comes with a guide or cheat sheet or dramatis personae, complete with affiliations. Or a summary in the prologue.

DJ is the center of the story. It’s not just that she is telling it in the first person, but also that all the action revolves around her. She has ties to every group, some friendly, some not at all, but she connects in some way to every faction. Except that fae, and it looks like that connection is forming at the end of the story. Also the fae are Jean Lafitte’s business partners (nearly everyone is) and DJ is certainly connected to Lafitte. The question that lies between them concerns the nature of that connection.

In the story, every faction is gearing for war. They are also, for the most part, individually self-destructing as the status quo falls to pieces. A significant chunk of the conflict causes collateral damage among the human population that is supposed to remain ignorant of their collective existence.

With the Winter Prince of the Fae bringing an unnatural Arctic winter to New Orleans, that can’t possibly last.

A significant chunk of the stated conflict, as opposed to the underground one, revolves around DJ’s best friend Eugenie, who also represents that human collateral damage. Because all the factions have an agenda for the baby that Eugenie is carrying as a result of the Elven leader Quince Randolph’s pursuit of DJ by way of her best friend. Eugenie is now caught in the middle, and DJ is right there with her, both trying to get the preternaturals to stop arguing about Eugenie and the baby as though they were mere bargaining chips and not people, and to protect Eugenie from all the preternaturals who plan to imprison Eugenie supposedly for her own safety. Or theirs. DJ wants to do right by her friend, which means doing what a whole lot of other people consider wrong.

Which is where DJ’s love life, or sometimes lack of it, comes in. DJ and Alex Warin are attempting to have some kind of relationship. But for the ultra order conscious Alex, DJ the chaos magnet is often more than he can handle. He always finds himself caught between helping DJ and keeping to the straight and narrow that he prefers. And DJ finds herself making excuses and pretending to be someone other than she is in order to keep the relationship going.

She does not know what she feels for Lafitte. But she trusts him. Not to always do what DJ believes is the right thing, but to always be honest about whatever scheming he is doing. And he always has her back – he’s already died once to prove that to her. But most important of all, Lafitte likes and respects and enjoys her company for who she really is, and not someone she pretends to be.

So in the midst of all the chaos, DJ is stuck in her own personal quandary, with no end in sight for either conflict. It’s a perfect set up for book 5. Which can’t come soon enough for me.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Deadly Calm and Cold by Susannah Sandlin + Giveaway

Posted on December 16, 2014December 15, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the author via NetGalley
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Genre: romantic suspense
Series: The Collectors, #2
Length: 281 pages
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Date Released: December 2, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

How far will ordinary people go to protect their secrets? The Collectors’ games are as much about manipulating lives as finding lost treasure. Everyone is expendable as the ruthless C7 pushes people into gambling with their lives in order to find priceless objects lost to history.

Samantha Crowe’s secrets could ruin her career, while Brody Parker’s could get him killed. They become pawns for two Collectors seeking Bad King John’s crown jewels, which disappeared in rural England back when Robin Hood roamed Nottingham. This time, however, the Collectors—a ruthless dotcom billionaire and a desperate London detective—might not be playing for the same team, leaving Sam and Brody trapped in the middle.

One thing’s for sure: if either hopes to survive, Sam and Brody will have to find a way to overcome their distrust—and their growing attraction—in order to succeed on this winner-take-all treasure hunt.

My Review:

So far, the Collectors series is turning out to be the love child of every historical conspiracy treasure hunt series that has ever been written. If the first book in the series, Lovely, Dark and Deep (reviewed here) is a cross between National Treasure and Titanic, then Deadly, Calm and Cold is the product of mixing The DaVinci Code with Indiana Jones. In other words, we have a treasure hunt for a historic artifact with nasty people on the tail (or trail) of our heroes.

The big difference is that all those other fictional treasure hunters are in it for the glory, or the thrill of discovery. At any rate, they volunteered. In the Collectors series, that is far from the case.

The evil baddies in the Collectors series are those collectors. They are a group of very rich and extremely self-indulgent, self-centered private collectors who will stop at nothing to add rare and priceless artifacts to their private collections. They are certainly not above a bit of blackmail, or even outright murder, to coerce experts into finding the prizes they seek. For the C7, it’s all just a big game. They get their thrills by grinding people into dust and beating their competition (the other C7 members) to whatever big prize is in their sights.

In Deadly, Calm and Cold, the big prize is King John’s lost crown jewels. Yes, I mean that King John, the one in the Robin Hood stories. Historically, he was the signer of the Magna Carta, because he was a despotic ruler even for those times. His nobles made him sign the “Great Charter” to protect themselves from his excesses. King John also really did lose his crown jewels in the area portrayed in the book, the east coast of England where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire.

Just as in Lovely, Dark and Deep, our story features a woman who is a technical expert on the subject at hand, and a man who finds himself in the middle of her search, but is hiding somewhere off the beaten path for reasons of his own.

Samantha Crowe is a graduate student in history, on a one-term research fellowship in England to delve into the history of King John’s lost treasure. She is also vulnerable to blackmail for some less-than-noble dealings both before and after college. She has a juvenile record, for stealing to support her addict-mother. While her motives were kind of good and kind of enabling, what happened is understandable. But it isn’t info that she disclosed to her university. Neither is her method of getting that research fellowship – her professor pulled strings to give it to her as a way of getting her out of the country and keeping her quiet about their now-over affair. She thought it might be love, he was just cheating on his unsuspecting wife with his equally unsuspecting grad student.

But sending dirty pictures to the student newspaper will pretty much kill both their careers. Or certainly hers. When the C7 member decides that the treasure she is researching is worth his time, she’s stuck between a rock and a hard place. It doesn’t matter that the pictures are photoshopped – by the time any investigation figures that out, the damage will be done.

Brody Parker gets dragged into hunt because his house is part of the land where John’s treasure might be hidden – and because he has secrets of his own. Brody Parker isn’t even his real name – he’s in witness protection as a whistleblower in a major U.S. racketeering case. He’s spent years being paranoid that the mob really will track him down. C7 thinks he’s the perfect person to blackmail, but the same tech skills that brought down a big piece of organized crime make him the perfect person to help Sam turn the tables on the mysterious C7.

It helps that the C7 is facing a whistleblower of their very own. While the “big boss” is hard to find, the guy who is playing both ends against the middle is forced to the conclusion that helping Sam and Brody get out from under is his best chance of a new life.

In the adrenaline fueled treasure hunt, Sam and Brody discover that their best chance of a new life is with each other – if they survive.

Escape Rating B+: If this series continues to follow the pattern set in the first two books, it’s a winner. The woman is the expert, and while the man is the muscle, he never forgets that they are partners – he doesn’t take over everything including her. Brody, just as Shane did in Lovely, Dark and Deep, has secrets of his own that make him a perfect foil for Sam.

Both Sam and Brody, like Gillian and Shane before them, have a lot of damage that requires the other to help them heal. The way that they start out, equally attracted but equally untrusting, gives them a difficult road to travel towards each other, but makes their love story fit the adventure.

I loved that the treasure was real – there is even a nod to the discovery of Richard III’s body and how medieval treasure can still be found. The nods to actual historical events grounded the story in a way that some of the antecedents like The DaVinci Code are not, fun as they are.

In many ways, the villains of the series, those C7 Collectors, come off as a bit too “bwahaha” evil. Providing Sam and Brody with the more mundane double-crosser to negotiate with brought that mysterious band of evildoers down to earth.

For a good time with a heart-pounding adventure that has a rocky romance at its center, add The Collectors to your collection. (Sorry, that pun was irresistible, and so is the series!)

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Susannah is giving away 1 $50 Amazon Gift Card and 3 $15 Amazon Gift Cards to lucky commenters on this tour. To enter, just fill out the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Author Susannah Sandlin on the evolution of a series character + Giveaway

Posted on June 13, 2014June 12, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Today I’d like to welcome Susannah Sandlin, who recently published Allegiance (reviewed here), the latest book in the awesome Penton Legacy series. (Penton is like vampire toffee, once you sink your teeth into the story, you can’t let go) She’s here to talk about…

Evolution of a series character
by Susannah Sandlin

One of the most interesting challenges about writing a series is how to keep the characters changing and growing, especially in a paranormal romance series where a different couple takes center-stage for each book while there’s an ongoing story line running in the background from book to book.

Also, we want to keep readers up to date on their favorites from previous books without having them steal the show.

Here’s a (spoiler-free) look at how the heroes and heroines of the individual books have carried over into the fourth book in the Penton Legacy series, out this week:

Aidan Murphy and Krys Harris. The first book in the series, Redemption, belonged to Aidan and Krys, and they’ve continued to be a force of stability in Penton through the ravages of the subsequent books. Aidan remains a “keep calm and carry on” type of leader for the town, while Krys is his confidante and a steadying presence in her own right. In Allegiance, we get to see Aidan and Krys as they try to transition the town of Penton into rebuilding mode. Aidan’s also up for a seat on the Vampire Tribunal, where he’ll have a chance to change things from the inside. Does that work out for him? Oops, that’s veering into spoiler territory!

Mirren Kincaid and Glory Cummings. The hero and heroine of Absolution also provide a stable force in the rebuilding of Penton. The former Scottish gallowglass warrior, Mirren is his usual taciturn, grumpy self, while Glory runs interference. It’s always fun to poke the bear, though, so readers will have plenty of chances for Mirren to react in his own gruffly hilarious way to things like trash-talking shapeshifters and Cage Reynolds’ love life. Since so much of Penton has been destroyed, Glory has opened a place called the Chow House where Penton’s humans can grab breakfast and lunch—but not dinner. She needs to be there when her vampire rises from daysleep, of course.

Will Ludlam and Randa Thomas. The first couple of book three, Omega, are still dealing with the aftermath of what happened to Will in the third book and something personal that happens in Randa’s life in the early pages of Allegiance. So we’re missing Will’s banter for swaths of this book. Don’t worry, though, Will fans. He is back for the last third of the book!

Melissa Calvert and Mark Calvert. Melissa and Mark, the stable human familiars of Aidan Murphy in Redemption and Glory’s confidantes in Absolution, had a bit of a setback (okay, yeah, that’s an understatement) in their relationship at the end of Absolution, with ramifications that carried on through Omega. The issues finally get resolved in Allegiance, but not quickly and not easily. A sabotage aimed at Mark doesn’t help matters.

Cage Reynolds. Cage is back in Penton as the hero of Allegiance, and this is definitely his book. But is his heroine the woman he was flirting with at the end of Omega? Or is he falling for someone new to the series? Stay tuned; our favorite British vampire has his own baggage to overcome, secrets to reveal, and love conflicts to sort out.

Matthias Ludlam. The Big Bad Evil Meanie of the series is up to his dirty tricks again after being released from prison on the eve of his execution. But by whom? And is Matthias calling the shots, or is somebody playing Matthias this time? Only time will tell….

Of course we have new Pentonites this time around—an Irish acquaintance of Cage’s from his human life; two women, both vampires, who met Aidan in Atlanta and have joined the crew, and two cast members from my Penton spinoff novel, Storm Force: golden eagle shape-shifter Robin Ashton and psychic Army Ranger Nikolas Dimitrou. Welcome to Penton, Robin and Nik!

Those of you who are fans of paranormal romance series….Do you like keeping up with past series characters as the series progresses, or do you want all the focus to be on the main couple?

About Susannah Sandlin

Susannah Sandlin writes paranormal romance and romantic thrillers from Auburn, Alabama, on top of a career in educational publishing that has thus far spanned five states and six universities—including both Alabama and Auburn, which makes her bilingual. She grew up in Winfield, Alabama, but was also a longtime resident of New Orleans, so she has a highly refined sense of the absurd and an ingrained love of SEC football, cheap Mardi Gras trinkets, and fried gator on a stick.She’s the author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a spinoff novel, Storm Force, a standalone novelette, Chenoire, and a new romantic thriller series, The Collectors, beginning with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. Her Penton novel, Omega, was nominated for a 2013 Reviewer’s Choice Award in Paranormal Romance from RT Book Reviews magazine. Absolution was the winner of the 2013 Holt Medallion in Paranormal Romance.

To learn more about Suzanne, visit her website or follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Susannah is giving away several prizes on this blog tour:

1 $50 Amazon gift card
2 $10 Amazon gift cards
2 Author swag packs (books, swag)

For a chance to win, use the Rafflecopter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Allegiance by Susannah Sandlin

Posted on June 13, 2014June 12, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Penton Legacy, #4
Length: 345 pages
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Date Released: June 10, 2014
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

British vampire psychiatrist and former mercenary Cage Reynolds returns to Penton, Alabama, looking for a permanent home. The town has been ravaged by the ongoing vampire war and the shortage of untainted human blood, and now the vampires and humans that make up the Omega Force are trying to rebuild. Cage hopes to help the cause, put down roots in Penton, and resolve his relationship with Melissa Calvert. The last thing he expects is to find himself drawn to Robin Ashton, a trash-talking eagle shape-shifter and new Omega recruit.

Meanwhile, as a dangerous saboteur wreaks havoc in Penton, the ruthless Vampire Tribunal leader Matthias Ludlam has been freed on the eve of his scheduled execution. But by whom? And to what end? As war and chaos rage on, love isn’t something Cage is looking for, but will his attraction to Robin distract him from the danger living among them?

My Review:

Allegiance wasn’t anything like I expected, but it delivered the two HEAs I most hoped for at the end of Omega (see review) and Storm Force (and this one).

Allegiance also feels a bit like middle-book syndrome, but if it is, it’s the middle of a blended Penton/Omega Force story that started with Storm Force.

Allegiance finishes with one hell of a spine-chilling bang, and the story can’t possibly be over.

I feel like starting my review with “when last we left our heroes…” because Allegiance picks up exactly where both Omega and Storm Force leave off.

Matthias Ludlam, the sadistic asshat enemy in the first three books, is due to be executed for his crimes in the morning. Aidan Murphy, the alpha of the entire Penton vampire community, is due to become the North American representative on the Vampire Tribunal in two weeks. The special non-vaccinated blood banks are supposed to come online any day, providing vampires in North America with safe, clean blood and with no need to enslave or kill any humans. The donors are all volunteers.

Of course, it all gets blown apart. Spectacularly, and with maximum collateral damage.

The Penton community finds itself under attack, and at first no one is sure where the attacks are coming from. Only that they are deadly both to people and to morale.

As events unfold, the community learns that their enemy on the Vampire Tribunal, has freed Latham and is keeping him under wraps for some future evil.

Of more immediate concern, a saboteur is operating in the now tiny community, setting fires and destroying new buildings as they are constructed. Everyone assumes that the perpetrator must be human, because so many of the attacks and subversions occur during daylight hours.

Not only are they wrong, but the truth is more perverse than anyone imagines.

Into the midst of all this chaos, Cage Reynolds returns to Penton from London, and two more-than-human members of the Omega Force arrive to help with the defense. Robin Ashton, the snark-ass eagle shifter, and Nik Dmitriou, the touch psychometrist.

Without going into spoiler central, it’s difficult to talk about the rest of the story. Suffice it to say that everything that can go wrong, does go wrong, and goes on a short trip to hell in a handcart. The folks at Penton are in receipt of every kind of bad luck and horrible happenstance imaginable.

Then they discover that they not only have a traitor in their midst, but that their enemies know all their weaknesses and don’t care how many people they kill in order to keep Aidan Murphy out of power.

While things do get darkest just before they turn completely black, in the midst of this seeming defeat the story does end with the light of hope and vengeance at the end of the long dark tunnel.

And Cage Reynolds figures out that what he came to Penton for wasn’t love, it was family. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t finally figure out that the love he wants is just like hope, a tiny thing with feathers. And a non-existent brain-to-mouth filter. Not what he was expecting AT ALL.

Escape Rating B: The evil in this book is really, truly evil. Their version of “by any means necessary” takes the concept to some lows that haven’t been seen since the Nazis went out of business.

I’m not saying that the Pentonites have clean hands, but there are some things so despicable that they can’t even imagine them until they start setting the place on fire. Allegiance is a much darker story than any of the previous entries in either the Penton or the Omega Force series.

Allegiance also does not have a happy ending. I’m not saying that the romantic couple doesn’t end up in at least a happy-for-now, as does a welcome added romantic reunion, but the story as a whole, the Penton vs. the world story, ends the book in a relatively bad and slightly uncertain place.

Cage and Robin provide a lot of the lighter moments in the story. Their unlikely romance is fun to watch, especially since Robin doesn’t seem to censor anything she says or does. But it felt like an HFN ending at the most because the overall situation seems so bleak. It’s not that they aren’t capable of an HEA, it’s that “ever after” at this point in the story could be unfortunately short.

I’ve been hooked on this series from the very first book (Redemption, reviewed here) and it’s driving me crazy to see everything seem so desperate. I can’t wait for the next book. It’s time for the good guys to take the fight to Tribunal and kick (or stake) some evil vampire ass.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Guest Post by Susannah Sandlin on Pirates and Templars + Giveaway

Posted on February 24, 2014February 23, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | blog tours> Book Giveaway> Giveaways> Guest Posts

Pirates and Templars are not necessarily a natural combination–but Susannah Sandlin does her usual marvelous job making it work in today’s featured review book, Lovely, Dark and Deep.

This isn’t the first time that Susannah has “played Pirate”. Her absolutely fantastic Sentinels of New Orleans series (written as Suzanne Johnson) brings Jean LaFitte back to life in a New Orleans where the living, the dead, and the magical collide. (If you love urban fantasy, start with Royal Street. It is awesome and the series just keeps getting better!)

A French Pirate, a Sunken Treasure and the Knights Templar
by Susannah Sandlin

It’s funny where ideas for books or series originate—for me, it’s usually a progression of thoughts that gradually coalesce rather than a single bolt from the heavens. So when I begin thinking about how the idea behind Lovely, Dark, and Deep came to be, I was able to trace it back to early 18th-century pirate Jean Lafitte, who plied the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and ruled an empire of a thousand piratical types south of New Orleans in the early 1800s.

The oh-so-delicious Captain Lafitte is a major character in my urban fantasy series written as Suzanne Johnson, so when I heard last summer about the discovery of the remains of three early shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico, I started thinking about what might happen to my undead Jean Lafitte should one of his lost pirate ships be discovered today. (The short answer: he’d want it back, tout de suite.)

Next came research into shipwrecks found off the Americas and what might have been aboard them, which started off as a hunt for Lafitte’s lost ships.

That, in turn, introduced me to the “Death Coast” of the North Atlantic, and I set my pirate aside (sorry, Jean) and got immersed in the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, where hundreds of ships since the fifteenth century have met their death and only a fraction have been discovered and salvaged. Pirate ships, Norse explorers, French settlers, British warships, World War II supply ships—all met their deaths on the rocky coastline, carrying everything from gold to household goods to—maybe, just maybe—some of the missing lost treasure of the Knights Templar.

Nothing stirs a writer’s imagination like Knights Templar and lost treasure, right?

Next, my journey took me to study the Templars, much of whose treasure has, indeed, never been found, and to study what was involved in diving off the coast of Capt Breton, specifically around Scatarie Island.

Finally, I began looking at other lost historical treasures, and the idea for The Collectors series, and the first book, Lovely, Dark, and Deep, was born.

The Collectors is a group of international billionaires, the C7—ruthless, amoral, powerful—who have a secret game: they compete to see who can be first to collect some of the world’s most valuable treasures. In Lovely, Dark, and Deep, a C7 member with ties to the White House stumbles upon a legend that makes him believe the long-lost Ruby Cross of the Knights Templar went down in a seventeenth-century shipwreck off the coast of Cape Breton. He puts the screws to the ancestor of the man who lost it and a washed up, on-the-skids deep-water diver, and gives them thirty days to find and procure it for him—or the people they love will die. For the C7 member it’s a game. For Gillian, a biologist, and Shane, the diver, it’s a break-neck race to save the people they love and find a way to turn the tables on their tormenters. And, yeah, there’s some love amid the danger—of course!

As for Captain Jean Lafitte and his own lost pirate ship? That story’s coming within the year, so stay tuned!

About Susannah:

She’s the author of the award-winning Penton Legacy paranormal romance series, a spinoff novel, Storm Force, a standalone novelette, Chenoire, and a new romantic thriller series, The Collectors, beginning this month with Lovely, Dark, and Deep. Writing as Suzanne Johnson, she also is the author of the Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. Her Penton novel, Omega, is currently nominated for a 2013 Reviewer’s Choice Award in Paranormal Romance from RT Book Reviews magazine.

Website and blog www.suzannejohnsonauthor.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/SusannahSandlin
FB: http://www.facebook.com/SusannahSandlin

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Susannah is very generously giving away the following prizes to lucky commenters on this tour:

1 $50 Amazon gift card
2 $10 Amazon gift cards
2 Author swag packs (books, swag)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: Lovely Dark and Deep by Susannah Sandlin

Posted on February 24, 2014February 23, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook, paperback
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Series: The Collectors #1
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Date Released: December 30, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

When biologist Gillian Campbell makes an offhand comment about a family curse during a TV interview, she has no idea what her words will set in motion. Within days, Gillian finds herself at the mercy of a member of the C7, a secretive international group of power brokers with a dangerous game: competing to find the world’s most elusive treasures, no matter the cost, in money or in lives. To save her family, Gillian teams up with Shane Burke, a former elite diver who’s lost his way, navigating the brutal “death coast” of the North Atlantic to find what the collector seeks: the legendary Ruby Cross of the Knights Templar, stolen by Gillian’s ancestor and lost at sea four hundred years ago.

My Review:

Usually a series is named for the hero, or the heroine. Or maybe a place. Something positive, at least.

The Collectors series by Susannah Sandlin is named after the villains. Those collectors are a group of rich and ruthless men who are playing a high-stakes game together, in secret. They chase after rare, or possibly unique, prizes of great value and significance. They race each other to win.

But there seem to be rules, and while those rules make the game more interested for these competitive, overachieving power-brokers, they are deadly for anyone who is unwittingly involved.

That’s what happens to Gillian Campbell, Shane Burke, and every single one of their friends. The “C7” have set their sights on a Ruby Templar Cross that was stolen by one of Gillian’s ancestors, and they’ve figured out that Gillian and Shane can be manipulated into helping them find it.

One of the rules of the “game” seems to be that the C7 members can’t act directly, the contest is more entertaining for them if innocent bystanders can be forced into doing their dirty work.

In the case of Gillian Campbell, the collector who is after that old Templar Cross starts out by sending her creepy pictures that make it clear they are stalking her pre-school-aged niece, and can snatch the little girl at any time if Gillian doesn’t do what they want.

They also temporarily cut off all of Gillian’s bank and credit card access until she agrees to their terms. Which are: figure out where her many times great-grandfather’s ship, with the cross on board, sank. It’s not just that the location of his shipwreck is unknown, but that she needs to find a qualified cold-water diver and get the cross, in 30 days. In September. In Nova Scotia. Where it is not only damn cold, but where she’ll be breaking the law to get the salvage back to the U.S.

The C7 already has a diver for her. Shane Burke needs the money that she is offering in order to keep his beloved boat from foreclosure. A foreclosure that is, of course, being partially created by the C7. Not that Shane isn’t overdue on the bank note, but he’s always managed to squeak by until now. The manipulators behind the C7 won’t allow any squeaking, or squawking. by anyone.

Shane might be initially intrigued by the money, but when Gillian tells him the whole truth, he’s forced into the fold by a firebombing at his favorite watering hole. If he doesn’t get on board, people near him will start dying.

As much of a burn-out case as Shane is at the beginning of the story, he just can’t let anyone else die if he can prevent it.

Which has nothing to do with how very much he’s attracted to Gillian. Because he’s not ready to let anyone into his life, and these are the worst of circumstances.

Gillian doesn’t want anyone in her life, either. She’s every bit as wary of relationships as Shane, but for different, and equally tragic, reasons of her own.

But as they get caught up in the chase for the missing cross, the threats to their lives, and the lives of everyone they bring into this crazy quest, create a bond that is impossible to ignore.

Only if they can figure out who their mysterious manipulator is will any of the people who helped them have a chance to survive. And only by exposing “Mr. Big” will they have any hope of a future.

Escape Rating B+: Lovely, Dark and Deep is what you get if you mix something like National Treasure with Titanic. You have all the elements of an opposites attract romance mixed with the treasure hunt and the conspiracy-theory plot twists.

Or maybe a better example would be Romancing the Stone, with an underwater treasure hunt instead of searching through jungles.

This is romantic suspense of the “breakneck pace” school of suspense–there’s a plot twist and a new nefarious scheme around every corner. No matter how much progress Gillian and Shane make in the quest for the Cross, the faceless evil collectors seem to be always a step ahead; with another plot up the sleeves for making our heroes stick with the plan and not think too much about how they can possibly get out of this alive.

Even as they fall in love with each other, Gillian and Shane think of their relationship as “foxhole love” and wonder if the bond they’ve forged has a chance of surviving when they are not running for their lives every second. But of course it does.

This is also a type of “road story” as they enlist friends and allies on the trip that takes them from Cedar Key, Florida to Scatarie Island in Nova Scotia. The danger ramps up with each day that passes, because each person they recruit is just one more hostage to fortune.

They recruit a terrific, and quite colorful, bunch of helpers. Each new character adds to the danger without distracting a beat away from the romance.

Their nameless and faceless enemy is a pitiless taskmaster, eliminating all loose ends as collateral damage. The author has done a terrific job of conveying the breathlessness of fear that the protagonists face, so when they finally manage to turn the tables, cheering them on is a treat.

Once you’ve gotten your heart out of your throat.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Chenoire by Susannah Sandlin + Giveaway

Posted on January 24, 2014January 20, 2014 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> blog tours> book reviews> Giveaways

Format read: ebook provided by the author
Formats available: ebook
Genre: Paranormal
Length: 48 pages
Publisher: StoryFront
Date Released: December 18, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon

When Faith Garrity’s twin sister died, she lost a part of herself. Unable to move past the pain, the once-driven ornithologist is at risk of losing her career as well. To save her job, she heads to the oil-ravaged wetlands of Louisiana. There, in the bayou community of Chenoire, she encounters the handsome but guarded Zackary Préjean, still suffering from a great loss of his own.

She’s drawn to Zack, but soon finds that the Préjean family isn’t what it seems… They have dangerous secrets—and deadly enemies. Caught up in a feud that threatens the area’s uneasy truce, Faith and Zack must learn to trust each other. Survival will require enormous sacrifice, but it just might also give them both a way to move on.

My Review:

Susannah Sandlin, whether she is writing as Sandlin or as Suzanne Johnson, always does a fantastic job of painting extremely clear pictures in her readers’ minds of both New Orleans and the less familiar but much creepier Louisiana bayou country.

Chenoire also brings us back to the devastation caused by the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill , and the reminder that the damage was not just confined to shores frequented by tourists. The spill continued for months, and the effects are still being felt in coastal wetlands today.

It’s the aftermath of the disaster that sets up this story. Faith Garrity is an ornithologist who plans to study the effects of “storm-shock” on the avian population of the bayou. She believes that the oil invading the birds’ habitats changed their coloring.

Well, Faith has sort of a plan. What she really has is a concept that she hopes will get her academic career back on track, and a lot of desperation. She shows up during “gator season”, and can’t get a boat or a guide to take her where she needs to go.

She’s desperate because she lost her twin sister to an auto accident, and hasn’t managed to recover from her own personal disaster.

Faith gets sent where she needs to go, to make a bond with someone else who is alone. In the middle of absolutely nowhere, there’s supposed to be someone who might rent her a boat. Faith is sent to Chenoire, a very small town with a very big secret.

In Chenoire Faith finds herself in the middle of the Préjean family, and the dynamics between grown-up sons who can’t get over their father’s remarriage, and the woman who gave up her city life to marry into a place she can never be part of and where she’s resented at every turn.

All the Préjean sons are twins, except for Zack. Faith lost her twin. They have a common place from which to start at least a friendship, maybe more. Until Faith is caught in the middle of the Préjean family feud, and Faith learns way more than she bargained for; about Zack, about Chenoire, and about herself.

Escape Rating B: Chenoire is a short story, and I wish it were longer. I adore everything Susannah/Suzanne writes, but the tale hints at a deep backstory that I’d love to have seen.

Admittedly, I always want more backstory.

It isn’t difficult to guess the nature of the secret of Chenoire. Figuring out that the Préjean family, and their enemies, are all shapeshifters, is not hard. The story is in Faith realizing that it’s not just okay for her to be alive, but that it’s okay to be happy to be alive after losing her twin, combined with Zack figuring out that having at least a civil relationship with his stepmother does not mean that he doesn’t still mourn his mother’s loss.

We see the beginning of Faith’s relationship with Zack. This isn’t a romance, and what they have isn’t insta-love. Thank goodness. They have a connection and the beginnings of both friendship and trust, which is a fine start for any relationship. We see the start of their healing, but not the end. We leave the story with hope that they get there.

Chenoire reminds me a lot of the author’s other recent backcountry story, Christmas in Dogtown. The story isn’t quite the same, but the settings are similar; both Chenoire and Dogtown are lost towns with deep roots in the misty past of legend. They both contain legends that still live in the present, but must be kept secret. And they both conclude with that hope of a happy ending, combined with the sense that there are still magical places in the world.

TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY

Susannah is giving away the following prizes:

1 $25 Amazon gift card
2 $10 Amazon gift cards
2 Author swag packs- open to US Shipping (books, swag)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money or borrowed from a public library and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

Review: Storm Force by Susannah Sandlin

Posted on August 16, 2013July 28, 2013 by Marlene Harris | Author : Marlene Harris | B Reviews> book reviews

Format read: ebook purchased from Amazon
Formats available: ebook, paperback, audiobook
Genre: Paranormal romance
Series: Omega Force, #1
Length: 343 pages
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Date Released: March 19, 2013
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository

As leader of the elite counter-terrorism team Omega Force, former army ranger Jack “Kell” Kellison is always focused on getting the job done. So when a Houston high-rise is bombed and the governor killed or missing, Kell’s mission is clear: infiltrate the group suspected of the bombing and neutralize the threat by any means necessary. But once Kell meets beautiful chief suspect Mori Chastaine, he realizes there’s more to this case than meets the eye. And more to Mori than any man—any human man—could imagine.

Mori Chastaine is running out of options. Suspected for a crime she didn’t commit, forced into a marriage she doesn’t want, she sees no escape—until Kell walks through her door. A lifetime hiding her true nature warns her Kell might not be who he seems. But he could be the only one able to help save more innocent humans from becoming pawns in an ancient paranormal power play. If Mori reveals her secret, will Kell join her fight? Or will she become his next target?

My Review:

Let me say up front that I had two problems going in to my read of Storm Force. I really, really, let me emphasize this, really wanted this to be Cage’s story. Frankly I wanted it to be his HEA in Omega (reviewed here), and it wasn’t, so I want to see his story pretty badly at this point, and it looks like I’m waiting until sometimes in the fall. Color me annoyed on that score, especially since I bought the book.

The plot also had some similarities to another military romance I read not that long ago, in that the hero was having a difficult time dealing with having been forcibly discharged by injury, and couldn’t figure out whether this private contract thing, with or without the paranormal aspect, was what he really wanted. The villains in both cases also have a “bwahaha” aspect.

Let’s just say that Storm Force turned out to be way better than that other book, superficial resemblances aside.

Storm Force does take place in the world created by Sandlin’s Penton Legacy series. It’s kind of a side-sequel. All of the Penton Legacy has taken place, but those characters don’t appear. At the end of Omega, Randa Thomas’ military (and still human) family creates a joint human/vampire paramilitary task force as part of the deal that resolves the story.

The hero of Storm Force is the leader of one of those joint teams, but in the couple of years after Omega, more than just vamps have joined the strike teams. The all-too-human Jack “Kell” Kellison has both eagle and panther shifters on his team.

Which makes it a bit unbelievable that he doesn’t even guess that the person-of-interest his team is sent to investigate is also a shifter, even if she’s a shifter of a species that everyone believes is extinct.

What the FBI (and everyone else) does believe is that she is either responsible for a downtown Austin bombing, or being framed for it. The question are why would a known, non-violent environmentalist suddenly turn extremist? Or who would hate her so much that they would kill over 200 people just to get her attention?

The answers require more shifts in his thinking than Kell could have ever believed possible.

Escape Rating B: As I said, this book had to win me over, because I wanted it to be something other than it was. It’s a lot different in tone Sandlin’s Penton Legacy series, with more of a military romance layer on top of the suspense. It’s also a glimpse of the rest of the world that the vamps and shifters live in post-epidemic.

Kell and his unit are definitely an interesting group. Robin, is the star of the show, she’s an eagle-shifter and absolutely snark-tastic. She loves pushing everyone’s buttons, not just because she’s the only woman, but also because she’s different in other ways. She’s the only bird-shifter in the group too. She lives to defy expectations.

Our hero, Kell, fits the wounded warrior to a “T”. He’s on the fence about having surgery to repair what can be repaired in his spine. He’s going to have to make changes in how he fights. He has to recognize that his best contribution to a team that includes shifters (all of whom are stronger than he is!) is his tactical brain and not his brawn.

He’s never risked his heart before, but the first time he meets the heroine, he knows that she can’t be the bomber. Which doesn’t mean that she’s not the focus of whatever is going on.

Mori is the heroine, and she is the focus of events. I had a bit of a problem with her. She’s trying to be both Alpha female and Omega shifter at the same time, and those signals mixed. Also she doesn’t seem to realize that the villain is psycho, and could not be reasoned with. He just bombed a building to get her attention, which should have spelled it out for everyone!!!

There were one too many final battles to get this one resolved. It took a ton of resolution for Mori and Kell to figure out not just that they loved and needed each other, but how their relationship was going to work. And then they had to have a second epic battle with the big crazy. In the middle of a hurricane on a remote island. And he should have been put down a lot sooner with a whole helluva lot less fuss.

But I still read Storm Force by carrying my iPad around the house because I couldn’t put it down. I just hope Robin’s story is coming up next.

***FTC Disclaimer: Most books reviewed on this site have been provided free of charge by the publisher, author or publicist. Some books we have purchased with our own money and will be noted as such. Any links to places to purchase books are provided as a convenience, and do not serve as an endorsement by this blog. All reviews are the true and honest opinion of the blogger reviewing the book. The method of acquiring the book does not have a bearing on the content of the review.

In Praise of the Human

by Susannah Sandlin

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Pirate Love by Suzanne Johnson

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Evolution of a series character by Susannah Sandlin

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Pirate Love
by Suzanne Johnson

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Evolution of a series character
by Susannah Sandlin

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