Sunday, June 16, 2024

ARC Review: Blaze (Ghost Ops #1)

Blaze (Ghost Ops #1)

Lynn Raye Harris

Blurb:

Dead to their pasts. Ghosts. No family ties. No connections.

Six men with a top-secret mission move to a small town where they have to navigate local life, protect their secret, and, above all, stay single.

Former Hostile Operations Team soldier Blaze "Shadow" Connolly knows what it’s like to lose everything. He’s got nobody except his job and his team and that’s the way he likes it.

But when he walks into a gas station during a robbery and locks eyes with Emma Grace Sutton, he knows he’ll do anything to protect the pretty girl with the blue glasses.

ER doctor Emma had a bright future until her ex-boyfriend became the kind of nightmare she was certain could never happen to her. With her self-esteem shattered and her confidence in ruins, she left a promising career and returned to her hometown to take over her dad's small family practice. It's not what she wants, but it's what she needs to rebuild her life.

Until she gets that prickly feeling she's being watched again. Did her ex follow her to Sutton's Creek or is she's imagining things? Is she in danger or is it PTSD? She doesn't know, but she knows a man with the skills to find out. The ruggedly handsome sexy protector who saved her from a bullet once before.

Blaze isn’t supposed to get involved. Doing so could put the mission at risk. But how can he turn Emma away when the desperation in her eyes hints at even darker secrets? He can’t — and that might just be the final nail in his coffin.

Themes:  Contemporary, Military

Rating: 4.25 stars

Heat Rating: 

Review:

For longtime readers of the HOT Operations series, we have been waiting for this book for a long time now.  The new Ghost Ops spinoff, where our favorite colonel Alex “Ghost” Bishop takes his own team of HOT operators off the books and into the dark for a truly top-secret mission.  This series is destined to be a good one, but the first book involved a lot of set-up and prep for the rest of the series, so it was a bit of a different flow than a lot of the recent HOT stories. I loved the book and it had so much going on that the plot and anticipation was just twisty enough to intriguing, even if I guessed the bad guy well before the end. ;)  For those new to this series, you’ll love the way this story takes a sexy alpha male that knows he shouldn’t be pursuing a relationship but can’t resist the draw of a sweet woman into the arms of a doctor that can’t resist the sexy protector that saves her life again and again.  I am dying for more of this series, and I know that the Ghost Ops series will just get better and better as each of the guys finds himself sunk and falling in love, even when they know better. Book one, takes us with the guys to their new home in small town Alabama where Blaze finds himself in the crosshairs of a stalker when his new neighbor moves across the hall and the woman comes with all kinds of dangers and a sweetness he cannot resist, even though he tries.  Lynn Raye Harris never fails to draw me into the lives of her operator and blow my mind as they go on a crazy adventure and deal with some dangerous enemy while they fall in love despite their best efforts to resist cupid’s pull.

Blaze “Shadow” Connolly is just getting himself settled in his new home in Sutton’s Creek, AL, when he stumbles into a robbery in progress at the local mini-mart.  He knows he shouldn’t interfere, but seeing two women at gunpoint and doing nothing to stop it just isn’t in his operator-DNA, so when the robber starts shooting, he steps in and brings the guy down before he can do any real damage. Emma Grace Sutton was sure she was done for when she stopped in at the mini-mart for lunch on her way back into town at the end of her escape from Chicago and her old life, but when the big sexy badass steps in and saves them all she knows he is a good guy. And imagine her surprise when she learns he is her across the hall neighbor, and soon he is rescuing her again when her past catches up to her.   A dangerous predator is after her, one she didn’t realize she barely escaped with her life, and the only one that can protect her is Blaze and his friends, but being under his protection brings up a lot of emotions.  Soon Emma and Blaze find themselves living together and the connection between them seems like a magnetic force they can’t resist. But the closer they get, the more deadly the danger as Emma’s stalker is watching and not happy that they are growing so close.  Can they find a way to be together and survive the danger around them, not to mention their own issues, in order to build a relationship that can last?

I can honestly say that I havent read a story of two people so in need of one another in a long time. Blaze has so much baggage and pain in his past that he truly needed someone to just offer him love and the solace he needed to come to terms with his past. He has never found a way to let go of the guilt and pain of the past and being with Emma finally gives him the impetus to heal and understand that he did all he could, and he isn’t to blame. His strength and intelligence made him a perfect match to the vulnerabilities that Emma had in her moments of fear, but at the same time, he had his own moments of fear when his past reared its head, and she was able to give him just what he needed in those moments.  Emma was a strong, sassy, smart southern woman, even if she’d forgotten it for a while, and seeing her find her strength again as she battled her way back to herself was great. She obviously cares deeply about those she lets into her heart, her family and friends, and the town that she cares for, but those that threaten her she will fight to the death to protect.  I enjoyed seeing her fight her way back to her power with Blaze’s help, and even when she stood up to him when he was being a jerk.  The two of them has so many issues, but when they finally opened their hearts, it was obviously they were so perfectly matched they were yin to own another’s yang, and there really is no better experience than watching two people like that find love.

Blaze truly was a story of two people coming together under extreme circumstances but finding love despite both of them fighting it tooth and nail.  I loved seeing how hard they fought the pull and against one another to just keep everything on the level of friendship and protector/protectee, but resistance truly was futile for these two.  Blaze was a sexy alpha with painful guilt-laden memories eating him alive, but when he finally begins to let them go, he lightens up and becomes a sweet and loving mate for Emma that will become a perfect southern gentleman.  Emma Grace is a strong and sassy southern lady, with a kickass streak of protectiveness, that has forgotten her inner core of steel and she just needed a good reminder of her own strength.  Once she is challenged and forced to find her power again, Emma fights for herself and those she loves, against forces both internal and external until she gets life and love the way she wants it and the man she wants in her arms and her heart. I loved the passionate fire that flowed between these two from the very beginning, but once they finally lets loose the fire, it became an out-of-control raging fire (yes, I said it, sorry not sorry).  I am dying for the rest of the Ghost ops guys to get their stories as Harris takes us on this journey through the mission that was so top secret that the guys had to go even more off the books than they were with HOT, because it’s bound to be an adventure for the ages.

*eARC provided by author for the purpose of an honest and unbiased review.  No compensation was provided.

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