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.
Software engineer
Caroline Crowell is a dead woman walking. When the top-secret lab she’s working
in goes up in flames and she barely makes it out alive, she knows her time is
up. If she wants to stay alive and protect the only family she has left, she has
to disappear.
But first she
needs help. Someone to watch her back and make sure her enemy doesn’t get any
closer while she plans her escape.
Seth “Phantom”
King trusts no one but his team. He knows what people are capable of, and he
knows how far a person can be pushed before they break. And what he sees when
Callie shows up at One Shot Tactical looking for help is a woman about to reach
the point of no return.
He doesn’t want
to be drawn in by her fear, doesn’t want to believe she’s anything but a
potential suspect in his mission. But his teammates have proven that you can’t
stop feeling something for a woman even when you know you aren’t supposed to.
Denying it only makes it worse.
When the danger
Callie fears comes to town, Seth has a choice. Fight for the future he needs.
For the woman he needs.
Or watch
everything go up in smoke.
Themes: Contemporary
Rating: 4.25 stars
Heat Rating: 
Review:
The
truth will finally come out as two
people that have both lost the ability to trust have to find a way to
believe in one another if they want to survive and prevent a disaster that could
potentially cause a worldwide catastrophe.
Lynn Raye Harris takes us to a small town in Alabama, one that you would
never think to look twice at, but that is currently the center of a dangerous experiment
that puts it right in the crosshairs for spies, killers, and all kinds of
danger. In order to prevent secrets from
getting out and dangerous national enemies from gaining possession of information
they shouldn’t have; the Ghost Ops team has laid their lives and futures on the
line. Seth has suspicions about the
beautiful computer programmer that is a member of the secret experimental team
he is protecting, but when she is almost killed and comes to him for help his
life is suddenly very complicated. I
loved every second of the story and I am dying for the next in the series for
sure but I cannot wait to see if these boys will be able to get back to HOT in
the end or if they will be staying in their new hometown.
Caroline
“Callie” Crowell has been trying to find a way out of the mess her life has
become, with attempted blackmail, suspicious code on her top-secret project,
and high stress in her personal life, but she never imagined someone would try
to kill her. When she almost dies in a
fire at her top-secret lab, she knows it is no accident and goes to the only
people she can think of for help. Seth “Phantom”
King is stunned when Callie shows up at One Shot Tactical looking for help,
claiming someone is trying to kill her because she refused to give into their
blackmail attempts. Seth suspects that she is lying, that she is really a spy
on the project and cannot be trusted, but at the same time he feels a pull
toward her stronger than he has ever felt for another woman. The more time they spend together, with Seth
and Callie both slowly coming to trust and opening up, both of them come to
learn that their future can only be free if they face the issues of their
past. But as the danger gets higher around
Callie, Seth has to decide if he truly trusts her or if his own fears and
hangups are worth losing the first woman that has ever touched his heart. Because
there is danger around every corner and if they can’t fully trust one another
they have no hope of surviving the danger.
Seth
is the quintessential hero that has been broken in his past and has never come
to terms with those issues. I enjoyed getting
to know him and seeing him at work as he accepted that his trust issues and his
past were holding him back, but only when he finally opened his heart did I truly
love him. His past was definitely
painful, filled with heartbreak all the way back to his early childhood, and
only when he accepted that not everyone was going to reject, abuse, and
mistreat him did he learn how much he was being held back by those past
hurts. Sharing his revelations with both
Callie and his guys showed him that he could count on people to support him
unconditionally and offer him love, but he had to be open to it. His intelligence and strength were matched
only by his dedication to caring for those under his wing. He really was a wonderful
character to get to know. Callie obviously had her own fears to work through as
she’d so recently gone through trauma after trauma, but the way that she opened
herself to Seth showed that she wanted to be able to love him with all her
heart. The love she had for her sister
also shows how big her heart can be even though she fears the loss and trauma
that she’s already experienced. Callie might be scared of everything happening
around her because she is out of her wheelhouse with all the top-secret danger,
but she is obviously intelligent and dedicated to work and goals she believes
she is working for. I loved seeing the
way she offered her help to the team and her heart to Seth, instead of hiding
when she could have easy cowered in a corner like many would have, showing us
her inner strength was a core of titanium. In the end she might have had her
fears, but she was more than willing to fight past them to get what she felt could
have been a beautiful future.
As
the Ghost Ops series continues to develop, each of our heroes seems to be
setting down roots in their small town in Alabama, leaving us with the feeling
that their HOT lives truly have ended.
That said they are still kickass operators and there is no doubt that
they are serving their country and protecting the citizens in need around
them. Seth’s story continues that as the
beautiful but suspect computer programmer they have been monitoring suddenly
arrives on their doorstep claiming someone is trying to kill her because she is
refusing to help them get access to the top-secret project. Seth is a beautifully damaged hero that needs
the right motivation to finally get over his horrific past, and it looks like Callie
is just what the doctor ordered. Callie
is determined to survive this latest threat, even if she has to take her sister
and go on the run, but Seth is just as determined to help her and keep her
around. Together they are combustible
and the more time they spend together the more the passion and potency of their
connection leads them both to open their minds and hearts to an unexpected future
they could have together. I loved seeing
them as they sparked off one another—arguing, working together, or simply
finding their way through the morass of emotional pain—until they finally found
a way to their peaceful and emotional balance.
I am really looking forward to the rest of the series and I suspect I know
what will be coming in the next book, but will enjoy it no matter what as the
series continues to its inevitable conclusion once all the guys have their
stories. Ms. Harris certainly found her footing with this
latest spin-off and didn’t let readers down when she decided to send Ghost off
with his group of men on a mission like no other.
*eARC provided by author for the
purpose of an honest and unbiased review.
No compensation was provided.
