Reviewer: Jen Flash of Fury by Lea Griffith
Series: Endgame Ops #1
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: March 17th 2017
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Pages: 384
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Series Rating:
Their spark is immediate
Kingston McNally lost men when someone betrayed his team, and now he's out for retribution. His quest for the enemy's courier leads him to Cameroon and Allie Redding, a petite Peace Corps volunteer as stubborn as she is brave. Their attraction is immediate, but Allie has secrets of her own...and she's not giving them up easily.
But their secrets could burn them both
Allie's life has been spent hiding in plain sight, but she's had enough of her cloak-and-dagger existence. On her way home, her plane is hijacked-and King saves her life. But that doesn't mean she owes him anything...even if he is the most damnably sexy man she's ever laid eyes on. He's got black ops and secrets written all over him, and trust is a two-way street.
This book sounded right up my alley because it’s about two people on the run, jetting around the world. Totally my catnip! Unfortunately, the book was largely disappointing for me.
Kingston (King) is the leader of a black ops team. Their last mission went sideways, a team member betrayed them, and several people lost their lives. King is trying to track down the international weapons dealer who was behind the mission-gone-wrong, and it leads him to a plane in Cameroon where he’s told a courier for the dealer will be flying. Instead, he interupts a hijacking in which some bad guys are attempting to kidnap Allie Redding. He doesn’t know if she’s the courier, someone else connected with the bad guys, or a total innocent, but he saves her anyway. When her real identity comes out, the mission changes to getting Allie back to America safely while also trying to unravel the complicated games that brought his team down.
The most frustrating part of this book for me was the romance. King and Allie have absolute insta-lust in a way that’s truly ridiculous. They are already making out very early in the book, while still escaping from the hijackers and before they’ve even had much conversation. It was especially stupid on Allie’s part, because she had no idea who King was or whether he was a good or bad guy. Come on girl, you can be smarter than that! King has some tender moments, but I didn’t quite understand what was drawing these two together, besides the obvious stressful, life-and-death situation. The dialog in the book is also kind of awkward, and the action jumps around. Several times I felt like I was dropped in the middle of an ongoing series and I had missed the set up for all the characters and teams. It made things confusing and hard to follow.
The complexity was a double edged sword, because while it did make things confusing I enjoyed some of it. There are so many people involved in the plot, and while there are a couple clear bad guys (the dealer and his cronies) and good guys (King and Allie), everyone else is a question mark. Who is double crossing whom? Who has their own secret agendas, and what are they? Will people’s personal relationships trump their national and financial loyalties? I enjoyed the mystery, and I’m intrigued by the larger story line. In fact, I’m intrigued enough that I might even consider reading another book in the series just to find out more, despite my misgivings with this first book.
So, consider my interest piqued but in no way sold on this series.
Grade: 2.5 out of 5
*I received a review copy of this book from the publisher.