Sunday, March 23, 2025

ARC Review: Seth (Ghost Ops #3)

Seth (Ghost Ops #3)

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.

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.

No comments:

Post a Comment