Joan Swan

I picked up a copy of Reckless on a free day on 8.18.16. I recently signed up for Skye Jordan’s newsletter and saw some interesting looking books, so I checked my ereader. Lo and behold, I had one of her books, so I started reading Reckless, the first book in the Renegades series.

Reckless is hot, hot, hot. I loved the characters, even those that were not so nice. I loved that Lexi LaCroix is the main character and is a plus size. She specializes in handmade wedding dresses and when she show more expands into the lingerie business I can only guess how sexy they will be. There are those that support her whole heartedly and those that want her to dumb down her creations. I love that she sticks to her guns.

Of course, we have some romance. Neither one realizes who the other one is and it makes for some miscommunication. That’s typical for any couple. But, they are magic in bed and pull no punches, burning up my ereader. I look forward to reading more of Skye’s work

Reckless would make a great movie.

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Now we’re getting somewhere. Both the glimpse back at the team before the warehouse fire and getting all the inside information about all the testing and experiments has finally brought everything into clear focus about what is really going on in this series.

Now don’t get me wrong I loved the other two books in the series but they didn’t show us much of how the team was before the explosion. Even though this was a very heartbreaking book in many ways it also had its happy moments. show more Getting a glimpse of all of them happy and seeing how their personalities and lives were before helps in understand how each of them got to place they are now. This book brought the whole team back together (with the exception of Seth) plus the extra’s they have picked up along the way. With the flashback group and present group it shows they are just as strong as a united front now battling evil senators, corrupt military men and psycho scientist as they were in fighting fires five years ago.

From the start of this series we knew there were 7 members of the fire fighting hazmat unit that had gone into a warehouse to fight a fire. Six had emerged permanently altered. One died. Well we found out at the end of the 2nd book that maybe that one didn’t die.

Quaid Legend and Jessica Fury were so in love with each other before the fire. The bond they had was so deep that when Quaid died Jessica turned to a life of drugs and men to try and ease the pain. She also vowed to bring down the senator she knew was responsible for what happened to them all including the death of her husband. As a Washington lobbyist she has been gathering information on him in hopes to bring him to ruin. She is now one year sober but still fighting with the deep depression of the hole in her heart losing Quiad caused. She struggles to believe her old team mates when they tell her they may have found him and alive.

The story of them getting Quaid back after 5 years of being experimented on and his abilities ramped up leaving him with no memories of his life before is utterly heartbreaking. This book is about a team reuniting and standing behind each other in their quest for the truth, it’s about soul mates who even though they were torn apart still held on to their love and that its that love that heals them both.

Even though we found out so much about what is really going on, things are far from over for this team. The lead in to the next book which will be Mitch’s story was a huge cliffhanger. The author has total entranced me into this world of the Phoenix and I look forward to many more books in this series. show less

You may have picked up on the fact that I have a few… “issues”. One of them is hopping into series midway. Just can’t do it. Even though it puts me behind on deadlines for reviews on books I’ve requested the privilege to read & review. MUST. READ. IN. ORDER. This is one such instance. I recently signed up to read & review “Rush (Phoenix Rising)” – and then I realized it was the THIRD in the Phoenix Rising series. Off to my library website I went (have I mentioned how much I show more love my local library?) and I borrowed the first two books in the series, “Fever” and “Blaze (Phoenix Rising)“. I sat down to read, and below you can suffer through my thoughts LOL! In the meantime, just some of the basic background info I like to provide: Author of the books is Joan Swan, and the publisher is Kensington. Each book is upwards of 350 pages – but holy moly are they expensive! My suggestion(s)? Borrow from your library… Buy a used print copy & then apologize to a tree… Split the costs with a friend. I hold firm on my stance that anything over $5 is CRAZY TALK for a digital price.

“RUSH”, by Joan Swan and published by Kensington, is 400+ pages of rushing excitement, intrigue & make-you-want-to-sob romance. The best part is that at the end there is an excerpt for the coming novel – #4 in the “Phoenix Rising” series – so at least I can rest easy that I won’t have to wait too long to find out how everyone is progressing! (And neener neener, boo boo, I now know who #4 is about!)

I won’t lie – when I started reading this series, I just couldn’t get into “Fever”. Really got into “Blaze” and swear on my PTO membership, I LOVED “RUSH”!! It’s a bit difficult to answer the question on if this could be read as a standalone. Yes and no. In terms of understanding the warehouse fire, absolutely YES. I would have LOVED to have had more of that information in “Fever”. In terms of keeping on top of the government conspiracy? That one would be a little tricky. If you could only pick one of this series to read, I’d definitely pick “Rush” – but even better, read them in order. (You’ll be glad you did.)

So at the end of “Blaze”, the team realized that Q was actually Quaid, the long-thought-dead husband to Jessica. He’s been in a facility for all 5 years being experimented upon relentlessly, to the point where he retains no memories of his life prior to the lab – including socialization cues. Once the team rescue / retrieves him, he & Jessica have to start over from scratch – even the basic scratch of “what is sex”. (Don’t worry – Quaid seems to get the hang of it pretty darn quickly… with great recuperative powers. Ah, what a superhero! [wink]) Add in the team trying to get to a position of safety, get to the bottom of the government conspiracy, while Jessica tries to figure out how to harness HER powers, and this is a true RUSH of a story!

Go get it. Seriously. I told my kids tonight they could make themselves hot dogs. I didn’t even want to be bothered long enough to feed them while I finished reading this book. It was worth the effort it took me to tune them out while they complained about having to eat hot dogs for dinner. show less

Oh my goodness, this series! I thought I really enjoyed the first book ( Grave Secrets ), but this one just blew me away! (Quick question: how soon will book three be out? Answer: not soon enough! And please, please, please tell me it's going to be Roman's book! Please :))

Everly was entertaining as a secondary character in the first book (how does one manage to be fired by the same boss so many times and still have a job?), but as the heroine of her own book? Bring some heavy duty shades, show more because OMG she really shines. Fortunately, Austin is more than equal to her both on a personal and a professional level...and then you witnesses him interacting with his little girl, and you're toast. Seriously, you'd have to be made of sterner stuff than I am--and possibly an automaton--to not be moved by this guy as he spends time with Bella.

I was a goner from that prologue, I tell you.

(Happy sigh...)

But then you remember that Everly's actually there on assignment and what her goal's supposed to be, and your blood pressure immediately rockets sky high. I never imagined I'd spend three-quarters of a Manhunters novel hoping that the Manhunters team would fail at their objective...

Spoiler alert: an HEA is achieved. And it's glorious. Now, bring on book three! (ASAP, please!)

Rating: 4 1/2 stars / A

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book. show less