Posted February 25, 2015 by Sophia Rose in Audio Delight, Reviews / 4 Comments
Tags: Danger Close, David Brenin, Echo Platoon, Marliss Melton, Romantic Suspense
I received this book for free from Author in exchange for an honest review.
This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Danger Close
I was in the mood for some thrilling action and a passionate romantic pair so I took up this one and settled in to listen to a rousing good story. The plot delivered on the action and the narrator did an excellent job of drawing me in. This is the first full-length book in a series about a Navy SEAL team full of camaraderie of this team of men, an authentic feel to their world and an exciting and adventurous romance for each guy. For the first book, it is Lt. Sam and a stubborn, fiery environmentalist.
The story opens with Sam and his team being sent into a city on a removal op. A wealthy oil man with some clout has used his connections and power to have the SEALs charged with pulling his headstrong, naive daughter out of a dangerous situation that is growing worse every hour. Maddie Scott ignored the warning that all American citizens needed to leave the Mexican city as the drug cartel took it over. Sam has no use for the rich and is infuriated that he is forced to leave off a legit mission to get a stupid female out of trouble that she wouldn’t be in if she didn’t act like the rules didn’t apply to her. Rescuing Maddie Scott would have been a piece of cake if the female had actually cooperated and didn’t fight him and try to escape him the whole time. She seemed under the impression that she, an unarmed, untrained woman, was going to hold off a bunch of pillaging raping criminals from the school of girls where she has been working. Sam pities the girls and can admire Maddie’s tender heart, but he wants nothing to do with the spoiled girl who will more than likely tattle to daddy that the big rough SEAL hurt her during the extraction.
Maddie Scott is infuriated that her father pulled strings and removed her from helping the poor girls in that school and since her dad isn’t in sight she takes out her wrath on the SEAL that did the actual removal. It galls her, but also shocks her that he is less than impressed by everything about her and only sees her as a pain in the butt and a problem to solve. He thinks her desire to ‘save the world’ one project and person at a time is hopelessly naive and just a willful ignorance of the dangers involved. Its her dream and she won’t give it up. Not for her interfering father or for the infuriating yet attractive Lt. Sasseville. In a surprising twist, their paths cross again, and again, danger is there in the form of terrorists, a possible company cover up and maybe someone who has a personal agenda against her family. Will she ever be able to convince Sam that her work is as necessary as his or will they always be frustrated by opposing ideologies.
This book was both a really good story, but also a tough one to get through for me. I liked the writing, the pace, the strong plot features, the back ground of the characters, and the settings. I liked most of the characters with one exception.
It was that one exception that made this a hard book to finish. I really couldn’t stand the heroine probably 90% of the time. She is an environmentalist who is also an idealist and those things in and off themselves didn’t bother me, but her stubborn-stupid stunts did. That whole opening scene just got me so mad and almost every encounter with her after that put me into slow simmer. She didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in the proverbial to do anything, but get herself raped and/or killed, but she blithely ignores that while she’s busy hurling angry words at her rescuer. I swear I was listening to a modern Perils of Pauline serial. Good thing her love interest is a SEAL since rescuing Maddie was a regular occurrence. And that brings me to the romance, I didn’t find her witless acts, lack of gratitude and stubbornness that attractive so I really only liked some aspects of the romance development.
That said, there is a lot of other stuff going on in the story that I did appreciate. I was very emotionally engaged through that whole hostage situation and even had a tearful response to a moment of personal sacrifice. I was fascinated each time the SEALs were at work. The bit of intrigue that snuck in wasn’t hard for me to figure out, but it sure made things exciting. And even though I wasn’t into the romance in one sense, I found the way the author handled the last part more than made up for it. There were some really tough barriers for these two to overcome and the pacing wasn’t rushed, but it wasn’t drawn out too long either. I appreciated that the author made them work for it and had some individual issues to deal with through it. The Epilogue was just perfect to give a lovely ‘ahs’ moment.
The narrator was a big strength for this story. I felt he was a good match for the tone and challenges of many male voices and more than one foreign accent. He knew how to make the scenes and characters come alive so that all I heard was the story and not the person delivering it.
To sum things up, I enjoyed the story overall. I think in spite of my issue with the heroine that this is a good start to a new series. I would recommend this book for those who enjoy steamy Romantic Suspense within a military setting.
My thanks to the author for the opportunity to listen to her book in exchange for an honest review.
Literary Pickers #73 Jungle
Romance Roundtable #71 RS
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Audio #5
Cliché Klatch #12 ‘he’ll play ball’
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I was born and raised near Sacramento, CA. I have read since I was four years old and developed tastes that run the gamut of literature. I went away to college and have a degree in education, a certificate in family history research, and a certificate in social work. I worked for a non-profit agency with low income families for 20 years which included being responsible for the children’s library and promoting/teaching adult literacy. I have lived in Southeast Michigan for the last 18 years and I am currently a book addicted homemaker with a cat and husband who keep me grounded. Recently, I made it a challenge to review each book that I have read as a favor to author friends who said reviews are important. I have done reviews for Good Reads, Amazon, eBay, and Smashwords, but mostly at Goodreads and Amazon.
I’ve created a tag/shelf especially for heroins like her : the TSTL shelf ! Can’t stand those, and then I don’t understand what the male character can find in them ! Yet I’m an idealistic environmentalist myself 😉 Thanks for the warning !
Yeah, she got me mad in the beginning and then a few other times. She had good motives and her projects are worthy, but she wouldn’t think through how her actions affected other people particularly those who had to come running every time she was in danger. She wouldn’t believe that the danger was real because she had this idea that she was doing good so people would respect that or something. Ugh!
You know I can’t resist a SEAL romance…they are just way too tempting. I can’t believe I haven’t heard of this one yet. But definitely looks like I need to invest in trying this author out, even if the heroine was a pain. But it sounds like the story was good enough to overlook that a bit. So I just might have to try it out. Great review hun.
Me too! The author did mention that this series is a spin-off of sorts to her older SEAL series so you might want to start there first. Oh, and check out her newsletter b/c she was looking for reviewers just a little while ago.