Sydney Croft

So far, in my erotic romance reading experiences, I've found that the best books are usually those that focus in on the sex and relationships. With the ones that add other elements, such as science fiction, suspense, paranormal, etc., the plot typically tends to suffer. Not so with Riding the Storm. This novel is like X-Men meets erotic romance, and in my opinion, it was a fabulous story that was a great start to the ACRO series. The overall premise of the series is that a group of men and show more women who possess supernatural abilities (ala superheroes) have banded together as part of a secret government agency to fight the evil versions of themselves (ala super-villains). I've always been a fan of superhero stories. Riding the Storm is just a super-sexy version of a superhero story, and I can't wait to read more.

Remy is a man with a lot of baggage. He was abandoned on a church doorstep as an infant in the middle of a hurricane that he may have caused. Remy's adoptive father had just lost his wife and unborn child in an accident, and saw it as some sort of omen that he was meant to take this child in and give him a home. He knew from the start that Remy was different. He tried to be a decent parent, but his heartbreak never quite healed. As a result he spent a lot of time at the bottom of a bottle, often leaving Remy to fend for himself. Ultimately, his father sold him out, but at least it was to the right people and he felt bad about it afterward. Remy discovered by puberty that he could control the weather, and that the storms and his sexual desires feed off of one another. His ability has always made him feel like a freak. The superstitious residents of the bayou think he's possessed by an evil spirit and have been trying to spell him since he was a child. Even joining the military didn't really give him a sense of belonging, as most of the other guys were freaked out by his seeming connection to the weather. All the women Remy was ever with were frightened of the ferocity of his sexual desires during storms, so romantic relationships have been all but impossible for him. That all changes when Haley shows up. She offers him a place where his ability will be appreciated, not reviled, and welcomes his sexual intensity in a way he never thought possible.

Haley is a parameteorologist who was sent by ACRO to assess Remy's abilities. She is also tasked with bringing him into the agency if he proves to be as powerful as they suspect. I liked that Haley was so accepting of Remy's passionate nature, that she even enjoyed it and met him with a certain intensity of her own. She does initially keep her true purpose for being in the bayou a secret, which leads to some problems for them down the line, but I still think she proved more than once that he had become much more than a job to her. I loved how she was as protective of him as he was of her. She also gave freely of herself to him and put her life on the line to help save him even though she had no special ability to fall back on.

Riding the Storm has a fascinating cast of secondary characters that I can't wait to see again. Devlin is the enigmatic director of ACRO, the agency he essentially inherited from his parents. Dev is physically blind, but through his psychic talents, he can see things most people can't. He is an incredibly sexy and intriguing man who is apparently nursing a broken heart with a series of meaningless sexual encounters. Then there was Creed and Annika, a couple who were every bit as appealing as Remy and Haley if not a little more so. Annika is super-charged with electricity, and much like Remy she feels like a freak. She also has trouble with relationships because of her inability to control her electrical pulses during sex which can fry the poor unfortunate guy. Creed is a ghost hunter who is followed by a possessive female spirit who doesn't want him getting too attached to any other woman, but he appears to be immune to Annika's ability. With his tats, piercings, and bad boy persona, Creed reminds me of one of the brothers from J. R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood. Annika and Creed spend a large part of the story trying to make contact with an unfriendly spirit in Dev's childhood home. Normally, I'm not a big fan of ghost stories, but this one was very engaging. I really enjoyed how they battled the ghost in the haunted house while also battling their growing passion for one another. Both of these characters have fascinating back stories, and yet, I feel the authors have only scratched the surface with this pair. I would love to see this couple get their own story, but as of yet, that doesn't appear to be the case. I'm not sure if their romance will continue to play out as secondary characters, but I certainly hope so. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of them and learning more about this spirit from Dev's past. Last but not least there were the two operatives Ender and Wyatt. These two are like oil and water. Ender is about as unfriendly as Wyatt is friendly, and they seem to enjoy trying to one up each other. Wyatt will become the hero of book #3, Seduced by the Storm.

Riding the Storm was a wonderful and entertaining beginning to what promises to be a sexy and engrossing new-to-me series. Sydney Croft is a pseudonym for the writing team of Larissa Ione and Stephanie Tyler, both of whom have pretty impressive resumes as individuals. It looks like Larissa probably drew upon her own experience as a meteorologist for the character of Haley. I'm dying to see what else these two come up with together, as well as exploring their individual backlists, because if this book is any indication, they are both very talented authors.

Note: This book is categorized as erotic romance, and while the love scenes are frequent, creative and ultra-spicy, there is nothing that I would describe as kinky. However, there is one scene of M/M sensuality that may offend some readers. show less

Riding the Storm
3 Stars


Synopsis:
Remy Begnaud has an unwanted gift: the ability to control a storm’s fury. Now, ACRO, a covert agency that seeks to help people with special powers, has sent para-meteorologist, Haley Holmes to seduce Remy and recruit him to their cause. Unfortunately, another rival agency is also in the running but their purposes are far more sinister, and Haley must contend both with them and her growing feelings for Remy if she is to help him master his extraordinary show more abilities before they destroy him.

Review:
This book has the kernels of a strong mythology and an interesting paranormal plot focusing on X-Men like characters. However, the sexually explicit descriptions have a tendency to overshadow the story.

The characters, both primary and secondary, are well developed. Remy and Haley have interesting back-stories and great chemistry. However, it is the characters in one of the two additional side stories that really drew me in: Annika and Creed, whose sizzling relationship continues and develops in the next two installments. I was not as enamored of Dev’s story.

Overall, the writing duo of Stephanie Tyler and Larissa Ione (of Demonica fame) have fashioned an intriguing world of action, suspense and passion. Even though I enjoyed the book, I think that the sex scenes become repetitive and could have been toned down a bit. Let’s see what happens in the next book. show less

Welcome to the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives (ACRO), an organization large enough to train and house various divisions of powerful beings: psychics, seducers, earth shakers, elementals...you name it, and ACRO probably has it. The beings at ACRO are more than just 'specials'; they're people with real issues and real desires, and this realness comes forth even moreso during missions.

Though we readers are introduced to quite a few characters and interesting side plots, it's seducers Sela show more and Marlena who lead the main plot. The story really starts when Dev, ACRO's leader, sends Sela the devastating video of what happened to the team of Navy SEALs in the Brazilian rain forest -- all but one member, Chance, gets brutally murdered by a creature identified as a chupucabra.

What with Sela being a skeptical cryptozoologist and a seducer with the skill to break into a person's deepest thoughts during sex, it only makes sense that Dev would send her into the forest undercover, along with Marlena. There, in the heat and danger, things go delightfully and horribly wrong. The mission starts off simple enough -- break into Logan's mind and learn about the creature. However, that mission was created before affection was involved.

At first, I dreaded that there would be so much sex that it would hinder my desire to focus on the plot. That wasn't the case at all. Now, don't get me wrong; there was plenty of steamy sex, but it didn't stop me from falling in love with all the characters (especially Creed and Stryker) or laughing or being glued to the page at the wonderful battle scenes. In fact, I've honestly become a fan of the series, and I very much wish that I had started from book one instead of book five.

Reviewed for Suspense Magazine by Tiffany T. Cole show less

What's hotter than a sexy secret agent with paranormal powers? A sexy secret agent with paranormal SEX powers! Yowza, "Seduced by the Storm" was the hottest book yet in writing duo Sydney Croft's ACRO/Storm series. I got not one, but two secret agents. I got the sizzling culmination of the ongoing secondary romance from the two previous books. I got a heart-wrenching conclusion to another secondary romance. And I got a dramatic, and quite erotic, side-story starring the couple from the first show more book! All this AND the hot story of the two secret agents.

Faith is an independent agent on a very personal mission. She has to steal a motherboard from the bad guys, use it to rescue her long-lost sister, and then turn said motherboard over to British intelligence in an effort to save other people from the menace that killed her parents. That she may have to kill a childhood friend turned evil is something she's faced and accepted. That she might die is something she's considered and set aside. That she'll meet the one man in the world who's perfect for her and then possibly lose him...now THAT she never dreamed of.

Wyatt figures he's working on his third life. He's been declared dead twice. Once to save him from a murder charge, and this time to go on an undercover op for ACRO. His mission is to infiltrate, steal, and then destroy the motherboard of a machine that could kill millions. And he just found out he's on an even shorter deadline which means he only has tonight to blow off some steam. Not a problem, he'll just use his pheromone mojo on the lovely woman who just propositioned him. And what do you know, his third life must be a charm because this woman is special.

This third book is much more complex and much more erotic and much more...MORE. Even with all the different plots going on, the authors do a great job of keeping everything tight and woven smoothly. This is one that will have you laughing, tearing up, and sitting on the edge of your chair as you burn through the pages to find out what happens to who. Now I only have the short story in "Hot Nights, Dark Desires" to tide me over until the next book, "Taming the Fire" releases in May 2009. It's already on my must-buy list. show less