The Danger That Is Damian
Lisa Renee Jones
Sourcebooks, May 1 2012, $6.99
ISBN: 9781402251627
GTECH Renegades soldier Damion Browne keeps reminding himself to remain focused on his current mission in the war against the Zodius. Instead the woman in the bikini keeps distracting him.
His assignment goes wrong, but Damion escapes with the bikini woman Lara Martin. He takes her to his apartment where he is stunned when he realizes she is a female GTECH. He is unaware she is one of a newly engineered super woman soldier Serenity whose mission is to end the Renegades. Although he soothes her headaches and has her heart pumping, Lara’s customized brainwashing is to destroy her beloved who has doubts about his beloved’s loyalty.
Once again with a nod to Captain America, Lisa Renee Jones provides a great romantic military fantasy. The action-packed story line grips the reader from the moment Damion’s mission fails and never slows down as readers will wonder whether love can supersede intense brainwashing. Fans will enjoy this Project Zodius (see The Legend of Michael) as the two adversarial groups of Super Soldiers bring a deadlier female element into the war. Harriet Klausner
Lethal Rider
Larissa Ione
Grand Central, May 22 2012, $7.99
ISBN: 9780446574501
Thanatos the Horsemen of the Apocalypse Death rages over what has happened to him. For centuries this Lord of Deliverance knew he must remain sexual abstinent to prevent his Agimortus seal from breaking. An ancient prophecy claims that his offspring will save the world so two of his Horsemen siblings (Ares and Limos) drugged him so that Aegis Guardian Regan Matthews could seduce him in order to become pregnant (see Immortal Rider).
Feeling date raped and betrayed Thanatos abducts Regan in order to make her his sexual prisoner. However, he finds an obsessive compulsive disorder individual filled with remorse and eight months pregnant. Stunned Thanatos realizes the baby is his Agimortus and the fourth Horseman Pestilence, whose seal was broken (see Eternal Rider), hunts them for he knows killing the infant will fuel the Apocalypse.
The third Lords of Deliverance romantic urban fantasy is a superb apocalyptic thriller that grips the reader from the moment Thanatos realizes he has been betrayed and never slows down until the final confrontation. Though it helps to have read Immortal Rider as the drugged seduction occurs as a secondary plot; that is not necessary as this fast-paced story line filled with betrayals can be read alone; while setting up the Ione apocalyptic mythos final doomsday confrontation. Harriet Klausner
The Taken
Vicki Pettersson
Harper Voyager, Jun 12 2012, $13.99
ISBN: 9780062064646
Five decades ago Griffin Shaw private investigator was murdered. His gig is collecting the souls of murder victims like Nicole Rockwell who in spite of a crushed larynx tells him she is a photographer not a hooker who due to the movie Ghost distrusts him to Take her soul to Everlast. Unable to resist a crying female; he breaks the rules and allows her to change her clothing; allowing Anas of the Powers angels to claim the soul. Griff’s efforts to prevent the theft angers Anas who clips his wings and returns him to life in a skin of sin.
Nicole’s friend Las Vegas reporter Katherine “Kit” Craig arrives as Griff flees. Kit and Nicole were working on a child prostitution ring. Meanwhile Griff figures since he is being punished by the heavenly powers, he will investigate the cold case murders of himself and his wife Evie. However, he is given one last chance to regain his heavenly status: he must collect the soul of Kit Craig whose guilt and obsession to avenge her friend’s death has her facing death. Falling in love Griff cannot deliver though it means damnation.
This is an engaging romantic urban fantasy as Vicki Pettersson deftly exaggerates the traits of the hard boiled 1950s detective with a soft boiled heart and the go into hell for a story reporter (Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday). The paranormal hierarchy contains a uniqueness that is two-sword as the premise enables the reader to understand Griff’s “sin” and the universe he works, but the complexity of the Pettersson pantheon also slows down the storyline while never explaining his “fickleness” between Evie and Kit. Still this is an entertaining paranormal as two souls defy heaven. Harriet Klausner
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