The fabulous bloody high action hijinks of Bethany Anne continue as she earns her title of Queen Bitch and starts to gather up a multi-species team around her.
Need a helicopter? Check! Gorgeous mansion? Check! Smack down the werewolves and gain some allies? Check and check!
Bethany Anne is rewriting the rules and those that have an issue with that are finding out how much trouble they might be in.
Another high action story with new characters, added locations and new developments that just make this even better.
America has been losing good men since their teams don’t have a Vampire to help them and Frank is hoping Bethany Anne can, and will, help.
Further, the American Pack Council is having internal problems with their own “young and dumb” Were’s who want to ignore Michael’s strictures.
With no one seeing Michael, the fear of the ‘Boogeyman’ is starting to recede.
That’s ok with Bethany Anne, it means she will personally deliver the message there is a new vampire in town.
Immediately following the story of Bethany Anne from ‘Death Becomes Her’, Queen Bitch rides a rollercoaster of action and a heavy dose of creative cussing. Bethany Anne starts to get a team in place to help her affect change.
Because, whether the UnknownWorld wants it or not, change is coming.
Well, this was unexpected. Picked this up when looking for another series and found an awesome series that I’m binging.
Honestly, it’s the best, like discovering a new favorite bag of popcorn or chips for that late night snack. One you can’t stop eating when you’ve opened the bag.
Yes, I’m way past this book.
This series is great for those who love action movies and paranormal stories. All that mixed in with military stuff, helicopters, things that go boom, vampires and werewolves and even science fiction space travel. And it’s awesome.
No I don’t take any of this seriously but what fabulous fun.
“Bethany Anne Reynolds is dying”
That’s the hook. She’s a very smart, beautiful and highly qualified woman in Intelligence. Her father? A general.
Turns out all through the history of the USA, a very powerful “family” has been helping the country succeed in turn for a certain favor. Now it’s time for that favor to be paid back again.
This is a really interesting take on vampires, their origins and how they reproduce.
The first novel sets the stage, the characters and Bethany Anne’s first steps in taking the role that will define her character. And give her a team.
The story is a quick read and it’s over before you know it.
Luckily it’s a complete series and you can swiftly move on to the next one. Which I did. And then the next.
It absolutely wrecked my sleep and my dog’s I can tell you.
It’s a bloody, high action, foul mouthed, blast! Loved every minute of it and Bethany Anne too!
Bethany Anne Reynolds is dying. The monsters should be relieved she’s running out of time.
A vampire with secrets older than the legends offers her one way out: pain, power, and a place in a hidden war the government pretends doesn’t exist. Bethany Anne takes the deal with both hands and a loaded weapon. The transformation kills most who attempt it. She survives it—and wakes up with fangs, superhuman strength, and an alien consciousness living rent-free in her head.
Once she steps through the door, werewolves, black ops, alien tech, and bloodlines that rewrite the dark start crawling out of the shadows. These aren’t the vampires of legend. And Bethany Anne isn’t here to whimper, bargain, or behave. If the monsters want to run the world, they’ll have to get through the woman Death couldn’t keep—the one her enemies will learn to call the Queen Bitch.
Profane, violent, and funny as hell—the first shot in a sprawling urban fantasy / military sci-fi universe readers tear through in batches.
Scroll up and one-click to meet the Queen Bitch herself
I usually like the writing of Jenny Schwartz but a story like The Troll Bridge highlights the aspects of her storytelling that I think are well done and the elements that I think make her stories underwhelming or perhaps problematic.
First the positive. This is a story about a young girl, a 6 yr old whose father runs a bar in a small village in a fantasy kingdom . They are unaware of magic until a sorcerer arrives and decides that their bridge should have a troll. Which he “makes “ with his magic and leaves there with certain instructions.
Turns out Morgana befriends the small stone troll as soon does the village, giving him a name and making him part of their family and community. Even though he’s essentially a slave to the bridge and the sorcerer.
The description calls them children. No. There’s one human child and a stone boy who’s basically a slave to a mage here.
When the mage returns, he tells her and her father and villagers that because Morgana has magical powers, she going away to a school where she can be taught to use the power of her powers. Threats ensue. Including those around Peter.
There’s a whole section about Morgana at the school, being pushed by the scholars towards studying the war mage powers and the long military battles and war that follow. She grows up among losses and the fears of losing Peter whose evolution and manipulation is a major part of the story.
The battles, the deathly impacts upon her and those fighting, the emotional trauma which is only briefly mentioned, but the physical pain is often accounted for on the page by both sides.
That I believe is strangely true but the author cannot decide whether to write a fairy tale about a girl who loves a troll or a realistic twisted fairy tale version about war, slavery, its impact on the children they conscript and then consume as battle fodder, then the ramifications after it’s over.
Instead Schwartz settles on an unrealistic narrative that leaves so many questions unanswered and gives Morgana and Peter an unreasonable HEA.
Spoilers: The King’s sorcerer who sees his creations, bridge trolls, as his slaves to do as he pleases continues on. That he sees Morgana as the most powerful mage next to him in the kingdom would make it unlikely that he would leave her alone. Especially since she “tinkers” with his possession.
And Peter treated as a slave such throughout the entire story. Morgana recognized his status as such. When he is made to “disappear “ and is replaced by another, who needs help, does she help him? No. She’s focused on Peter.
That’s an entire species left behind here that Morgana and Peter have no interest in helping. Sentient beings who have the same potential as Peter .
But the story ends with Morgana and Peter happily married and back in the very village where they began. No serious questions asked about war, or heinous sorcerers, or magic or the other trolls who are still locked under their bridges.
Yes, i wasn’t happy with this. It wants to include tough subject matter but not examine those subjects too closely. I guess fairy tales aren’t very satisfying anymore. Not when you look closely at them.
Three stars for Morgana’s schoolmate who was pulled out of school to go to sea and ended up bitter and in the navy, calling herself Vengeance.
Morgana is a witchling child from the Sighaway Forest. Taken to the School of Magic, she is taught healing and charms. As her power reveals itself, she is forced to learn battle magic.
Her best friend, Peter, lives outside the school, under a bridge. The troll boy was created to guard the kingdom.
War is coming.
To those in power, the two children are weapons. But children grow up. A Witch and a Guardian Troll will challenge the Emperor himself – and pay the price.
***
The Troll Bridge is an all-new fairy tale. Those who fight for justice never fight alone.
I’ve read M. Tasia before in her fantasy novels and enjoyed them, so I picked up Apollo not realizing it was part of a larger universe. Starting with Fire Lake series and continuing with The Noah Project, both are focused on the survivors of a hidden, government agency science project. One that used soldiers, and kidnapped civilians in horrific lab experiments to create paranormal mutations in the military’s secret weapon branch. It was called The Noah Project.
Each series has what’s left of the survivors trying to discover to the others, rescue them and destroy the remnants of The Noah Project that continues to operate unchecked.
It’s a couple per book type of story and series. And the length, here 200 pages, doesn’t really give the characters adequate space for a relationship of any depth to develop to at a realistic level. So it’s an instant/lust/love type of relationship. Which is acknowledged, a mystical connection.
It develops very quickly, the drama and the resolution. And the next couple is highlighted at the end.
It’s entertaining and quick. But I wasn’t as connected to the characters here as I have been in similar situations and storylines. Not enough depth for the story.
A Soul Forged in Shadow, A Heart Found in the Light
For years, Apollo was nothing more than a number. A perfect weapon crafted in the cold, sterile labs of the Noah Group. He knew only the grey of concrete walls and the sting of betrayal until the day he finally escaped his chains and claimed his freedom.
But even though he broke free from the group’s stranglehold, he couldn’t deny the isolation of being a “mutant” in a world that feared him. Now he’s a leader with a fearsome burden on his shoulders.
Then Rocko comes calling.
A weary detective who’d walked away from everything, Rocko wasn’t looking for a hero. And he certainly wasn’t looking for a man who could sense the hum of the world around him. But in Apollo’s guarded eyes, Rocko sees a soul worth protecting.
And in Rocko’s steady presence, Apollo finds the one thing the Noah Group could never manufacture: a reason to hope.
As they lead a band of survivors against the shadowy organization that still hunts them, the battle becomes personal. In the quiet moments between the gunfire and the narrow escapes, a bond forms that is more powerful than any genetic enhancement.
Apollo has spent his life fighting to survive. Now, with Rocko by his side, he’s finally learning what it means to live.
“OPERATION VOLCANO IS BASED OFF THE OLD IRISH MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FIONN AND THE FIANNA.
Magic, legends, and a brotherhood who’ve been waiting for their High King!”
Annabella Stone writes vividly and meticulously about those who have fought and brotherhood of soldiers, the tight loyalty of the unit and their commitment to each other in her many terrific military series.
But this is my favorite. Stone’s Operation Volcano series combines her Special Forces military forces storytelling with a mirror realm of mythological Irish warriors , two sets of believable soldiers and tight brotherhood of warriors who find their hearts love. Their Grá Croí. One from each side who will battle for the other.
This is a military action story and these men, whether they are soldiers, snipers or a Hound of Fionn, see action on the battlefield. Guns and swords, teeth and bombs, bloody and realistic in its scope and its ability to convey the sounds and chaos of battle.
Reaper, Number four of the Special Forces unit, has been hiding a deeply personal secret, one that has scarred him physically and emotionally. An abusive relationship from his recent past.
So during his team’s stay in Tír na nÓg, when Hound of the High King of the Fianna, Cian Mac Dian Cecht, tells Reaper that he’s his Grá Croí, or fated mate, that’s the last thing Reaper wants to hear.
All the ways these two come together, the struggles, the respect, and the long journey to love is such an amazing read. It includes battles, naturally, a new paranormal aspect for Reaper that I hope is more fully explored in the future, and hints for the next couple coming forward.
It’s richly told, full of fantastic details, especially in the great halls of Fionn, when the the smells of venison hangs heavy over the whole room, the sounds of music and the drums send the blood rushing, and the reader is transported into another world.
Just incredible.
Don’t miss out on the Irish Guide and the information the author has on the characters and series at the beginning.
A fantastic book, grand series and one I’m highly excited to recommend.
A warrior from the past. A SEAL running from his. And a bond that can destroy them both.
US Navy SEAL Michael “Reaper” Rodriguez has faced down terrorists, survived ambushes, and cheated death more times than he can count, but nothing prepared him for the ancient warrior who just declared him his fated mate.
Hound of the High King of the Fianna, Cian Mac Dian Cecht, has been waiting centuries to find his Grá Croí. Now that he’s found him, he isn’t about to let a little thing like Reaper’s stubbornness stand in his way.
“Our courting will become the songs of the bards and the legends of the Seanchaí.”
With the full moon just days away, Reaper and Cian must navigate a minefield of ancient grudges, modern threats, and their own damn pride.
The clock is ticking.
“You can fight it all you want. But you’ll lose, or we will both die when the full moon comes.”
Reaper doesn’t believe in fate, and Cian doesn’t do rejection, but when their worlds collide—one steeped in modern warfare, the other in myth, legends, and magic—their connection becomes a battleground neither wants to escape.
The second book in The Ghost Protectors series, part of a larger military suspense romance universe created by this author, I found To Claim A Ghost a hit, full of characters and elements that make Stone so successful in this trope.
This was especially well written in the dynamic between the two characters who were torn apart by their respective families and political factions, then eventually reunited under the worst conditions.
To be a Ghost, a member of a secret paramilitary unit, is to be “dead”. To everyone who knew them, to have been “buried” and mourned by those who loved them. Even their own teammates don’t know each other’s stories.
So the burden and trauma of seeing the past before you and everything that entails is emotionally detailed in the scenes here and within the characters themselves. Angelo, now a Ghost and his former husband, Toro, and a sketchy undercover mission in Afghanistan that involves both the Ghost team and his former husband’s current situation.
It’s an investigation that’s involves current events, layered political realities, and multiple battle scenes. Fast paced, gritty and unpredictable.
At its length, there’s still a few elements that feel unresolved. I have a feeling they will be picked up in later books and storylines.
This is a terrific series and a very engaging read. One I’m happy to share.
Cover Design: LK Graphics
Cover Photo: David Wills Photography Models: Christopher John & David Wills
A dead man tells no tales—or so they say—but can he find a happy ever after?
After being declared dead by his country and recruited to an elite team of Black Ops Operators, former Italian Special Forces Consubin Angelo Selvaggio has never fully embraced the life offered to him by The Ghost Protectors. His heart has always yearned for the one he walked away from. Now the only remaining member of his blood family is missing in one of the worst hell holes on earth, to save him, Angelo needs help from the same man he swore he’d stay away from. The man who’s heart he destroyed when he walked away to save both their lives. Is Angelo willing to risk it all to find his brother? Is he willing to cross every line and break every rule for the one he loves? Hell yes, there is no price too high for one last shot at love with the man who owns his heart.
After the loss of his husband in a roadside bomb on the sand strewn streets of Kandahar, Vittorio *Toro* Gambino took refuge in the Tribal Lands of Afghanistan. Using his intelligence skills to be Italy’s eyes and ears on the ground in the Middle East. A phone call from a dead man sends his world spiraling out of control. Everything he believed in —destroyed. Everything he knew as truth—gone. Everything he’d dreamed of is once again at his fingertips if he can get past the hurt and betrayal which burns in his soul. He’s about to find out if he has what it takes to Claim a Ghost?
Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words 