Unleashing the Storm (ACRO, Book 2)

Holy cow, I liked "Unleashing the Storm", the second book of the ACRO/Storm series by Sydney Croft even better than the first! See my review of "Riding the Storm" (book one, Mar09 review) for the back story, but if you like action, wounded heroes, paranormal woo woo, and smoking sex...you really need to try this series.

Kira's had an affinity with animals since the day she was born. But once she hit sexual maturity, her affinity took a rather startling turn. She goes into heat, just like her animal friends. And if she doesn't have sex, and a whole lot of it, for four weeks...she'll die. When her two assistants at the animal shelter disappear right before her time begins, she's a bit worried. But when she catches sight of the second show more replacement, she's no longer worried...now she's just horny.

Nobody really likes Ender and he's just fine with that. After all, he doesn't like anybody either! And he's a killer, an assassin, and uses his nasty temperament to keep others at arms length...except for the women he uses and discards like candy. His orders are clear--bring Kira in to ACRO or kill her. And although he thought he knew about her mating heat, her constant presence does something to him and for the first time ever, his mission may take second place.

Woo hoo, these two were a roller coaster ride of dominance battles yet neither was mean or nasty about it. There's even a little bit of riding crop action! The best part of this story for me was the slow unfurling of the connection between Ender and Kira. Their struggles to try and keep their hearts safe from further hurt was touching...and hot at the same time. I also learned a bit more about the mysterious head of ACRO (and their enemy organization) and his love. And the secondary romance from the first book just keeps building in this one! Larissa Ione and Stephanie Tyler have penned another winner for me and now I'm off to read book three. show less

Apparently this is the year that I finally move forward on a few romance series where I loved the first book of the series, but for whatever reason, ended up putting it on the back burner. ACRO is one of those series. I loved Riding the Storm, but was appalled to discover that it’s been four years since I read it. Now I’ve finally gotten around to reading Unleashing the Storm. I love the whole premise of this series, which I would term X-Men meets erotic romance, in which people with special abilities have banded together into the organization known as ACRO (Agency for Covert Rare Operatives) to fight their evil nemesis, Itor. It makes for some exciting and action-packed story-telling. Then there’s the additional premise of one or show more both characters’ abilities either increasing their libido or somehow using sex to keep their powers under control, which brings in the erotic element with lots of steamy, hot sex. So for the unique premise and the way in which the authors combine these themes into interesting stories they get some extra points. However, I will say that while I did enjoy Unleashing the Storm, I didn’t like it quite as well as Riding the Storm, and I’ll get to my reasons for that in a moment.

The heroine, Kira, is a new character to the series. After ACRO finds out about her and her ability to communicate with animals, they send an operative to either bring her in or kill her. Itor is also after her and has been for some time, and ACRO can’t risk her falling into the wrong hands. However, the reasons for why Itor wants her and why she’s so dangerous are murky until the very end. Even then it’s only cursorily explained, so I felt like that part could have been a little better. I did like Kira, though. She has the ability to communicate with animals psychically, and she also has some animal physiology. This causes her to go into a yearly heat cycle that’s basically a mating frenzy, lasting for an entire month, and if she doesn’t mate every four hours during that time, she’ll die. Why she would die isn’t explained very well either, but I’m willing to give the authors a pass on that one. Although it takes nearly halfway into the book, we do learn enough about Kira’s backstory to make her a sympathetic character. In spite of mating with numerous men during her spring fever, and being a seductive sex kitten, she has an air of innocence about her as well. When she’s not in the throes of spring fever, she feels like something of a slut, bearing some guilty feelings over all the men she’s used during that time of the year, but she simply couldn’t find a single man who could keep up with her sexual needs until meeting her Tommy. Additionally she had a traumatic experience during one of her heat cycles in which several men took cruel advantage of her. I wish this part of her backstory had been developed a little more. She’s also a strict vegan for whom touching meat is a painful experience. There was much to like about Kira, and IMHO, she’s a good and relatable heroine.

To Kira, our hero is known as Tom, but to his fellow ACRO agents, he’s known as Ender. He was introduced in the first book of the series, but because his nickname doesn’t appear in the cover blurb, I didn’t realize it was going to be him until I started reading. Tom’s abilities place him in the ACRO sub-group known as excedosapiens. Physiologically, they aren’t that much different from normal humans except that they have certain traits that exceed those of normal humans. In Tom’s case, he can see long distances and he can run like the wind. Tom is also an intense alpha who doesn’t really do love or relationships. He has a troubled past, of which we don’t learn the full extent until near the end of the book. I really wish the authors had let us in on some of that a bit earlier, because I think it might have helped me to understand him better. He’s such a closed off character throughout most of the story, it made it difficult for me to like him, much less fall for him. I did start to soften toward him near the end, when we not only learn more about his past, but he also does some things that show how much he’s come to care about Kira. However, he’s not a particularly romantic hero, IMHO. Readers who love uber-alpahs who keep their hearts locked up tight until the very end will probably like and appreciate Tom more than I did.

The main reason I knocked a star off my rating is for the romance and relationship building or lack thereof. I didn’t start feeling any connection between Kira and Tom until over halfway into the book. By then, they’ve had hot sex numerous times, but in my estimation, sex doesn’t necessarily equal romance. Their first umpteen times together, Kira is merely scratching her yearly itch, while Tom is just doing his job. He goes into it knowing that she’s going to need sex, but still prepared to kill her if she doesn’t cooperate even after they’ve mated. During those times, they never kiss or share any romantic interludes as part of the sex, which IMHO shows that it was indeed nothing more than merely sex for both of them. When Kira begins to share a little of her past, the connection starts to improve a bit, but Tom remains locked up tight until the very end. To the best of my recollection, they also still don’t kiss until they finally reach the ACRO headquarters, which doesn’t happen until over 2/3 of the way into the story. Then they suddenly and magically realize they’re in love, which didn’t work well for me. Some of the events during the last 100 pages or so helped to mitigate this deficiency and in the end, made me believe that they did belong together, but it took way too long to get there for my taste.

Much like with the first book of the series, Unleashing the Storm has some intriguing secondary characters. I like Annika and Creed and look forward to further development in their relationship, which seems like it’s going to be a side plot in the main stories. Interestingly, their emotions are rather swapped from what one would typically find in a romance, which is different for me. Don’t get me wrong, Creed is a hot alpha male, but he’s the one having deeper feelings for Annika and trying to pursue a real relationship with her that isn’t just about sex, while she’s the one whose emotions are buried deep and is more or less happy with their sex-only pairing. Creed must make a life-altering decision involving Annika, which I assume will play out in the next book. Dev, the head of ACRO, also discovers intriguing new information about his past, the ghost that’s been haunting him, and the identity of the mole inside ACRO. His old lover, Oz, who I’m pretty sure was introduced for the first time in this book, returns, and Dev must also make a weighty decision that affects the future of ACRO. Remy and Haley (Riding the Storm) show up at the end of the book to help Kira and Tom, and it was nice to see them again.

Overall, I enjoyed Unleashing the Storm. If only the main romantic pairing had expressed a deeper connection sooner, I could easily have seen this book becoming a keeper for me like the first book of the series is. I only had a couple of other more minor issues. The first was the need for a little more detail in certain scenes, particularly action scenes. I sometimes had trouble envisioning what was going on because the character might be in one position during one line and then in a completely different position in the next line with no explanation of how they got there except that it just happened. Also I occasionally had problems with the authors’ writing style in which they leave out things like prepositions and conjunctions that made the narrative a little choppy and lacking a smooth flow. But in general it wasn’t too bad and I mostly got used to it. As I mentioned earlier, I love the uniqueness of the series, so I look forward to continuing at some point, hopefully much sooner than it took me to get around to reading this book.:-)

Note: The love scenes in this book are very frequent, creative and ultra-spicy, but other than one very brief spanking scene, one scene involving the light use of a riding crop, and the implication that Tom has some interest in BDSM practices, there isn’t much else that I would describe as particularly kinky. There is also one scene of M/M sensuality that may offend some readers. show less

"Unleashing the Storm" is second in the ACRO series, and the middle story in the arc about the struggle between ACRO & Itor for the weather machine. In ACRO 1, when Haley went to recruit Remy, Wyatt & Ender helped to bring him in. For this second story, the focus is on Ender - whose actual name is Tom. (We also will get interactions with Haley & Remy, meet Dev's Oz and Creed and Annika. Yeah, it's a lot of characters, but amazingly enough, I didn't get confused -- and I'm the one who can't call my kids - and that includes the dogs - by the right names half the time. They all answer to "whichever one you are".)

Ender is sent in to recruit Kira - basically because he was raised on a farm, and Kira has a psychic connection to animals & show more works on an animal refuge. Part of her animal instinct is that she goes into heat once a year - and her's is almost upon her, which would make her susceptible to Itor. ACRO wants to get their hands - or rather Ender's hands - on her first.

Girls, these agents are some HIGHLY SEXED FOLKS. We've got Kira in heat needing Ender/Tom every four hours (okay, that man has STAMINA!!)... Dev & Oz reunite (m/m sex - you're warned!)... and Creed & Annika are still trying to find their path to each other. It's hard to believe that two different authors have written this story, because it is pretty seamless and the flow between the chapters, and sets of characters, is believable and follow-able. (If that's even a word.) Again, LOVED the story & couldn't wait to jump to the next one! You could read this as a "standalone", but again - I recommend reading them in order to make sure you get all the nuances and can more easily follow all the different threads of the story-lines.

THUMBS UP!!

My only "ugh" about the whole book, and series, is that Random Publishing set the price... and it is $7.99. Granted, over 300 pages... but still. Is Random House NUTS?!? Library, here I come with my card tight in my hand! show less

Much better than the first in terms of story telling and character development. I really enjoyed Annika and Creed's backstory. Oz and Dev's is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, but I think it has great potential. And I loved Tom/Ender, he's so BA. o/ Kira was something pretty diferent from Halley, but I liked her. Will be reading the third. ;)

Unleashing the Storm
2 Stars

Synopsis:
Kira Donovan is an animal psychic and shares many traits with animals including the need to mate. Once a year for four weeks, she must endure an overwhelming sexual desire and if it remains unfulfilled she will die. ACRO sends Tom “Ender” Knight to either recruit or kill Kira as in the wrong hands her gift can be deadly. Unfortunately, ITOR has similar plans, and Tom and Kira must go on the run at the most inconvenient time – just as Kira goes on heat and Tom is the only one around to satisfy her.

Review:
In one word - disappointing. The plot is mediocre at best and primary characters are not as well developed as in the first book. The sex scenes are excessive and the explanation for them show more borders on the idiotic. Kira and Tom have little to no emotional attachment for the first 3/4 of the book, which makes their story less romantic and engaging. I prefer the last few chapters were the connection intensifies but it is too little too late.

In contrast, Annika and Creed’s story goes from strength to strength and I especially enjoyed their intensity. The relationship between Dev and Oz, however, did not appeal to me.

The writing is effective and the ACRO world is appealing so I am still continuing with the series. show less

The plot was interesting but there weren’t any surprises or twists for the main characters until towards the end. I was more interested with what was going on with Devlin, and between Annika & Creed than the main characters. This, along with their tepid romance made it marginally difficult for me to feel emotionally invested in their story.

The romance between the main characters was almost non-existent for ¾’s of the book. There were a few glimpses of romance in between hot and heavy sessions but nothing profound or memorable. Don’t get me wrong, they were getting it on like animal planet (often, hot, and graphic). It just seemed to me that was all they were doing. I prefer for sex to be integrated into the telling of a story, show more not a story stuffed between sex scenes.

I gave this book a rating of 4, not a bold 4 or an underlined 4, just a flat 4. If we could give ½ stars, I would have rated it a 3.5

The plot rated a 3 – interesting but not very complex
Characters rated a 3 – fair characterization, likeable, with some emotional attachment
Romance rated a 3 – some romance but not enough for the reader to be emotionally involved
Sex 5 – extremely sexual, graphic and explicit, sexual encounters are the main focus
Creativity 4 – original, decent development, the last few chapters were exceptional. show less

I want to like this series

But the number of sex scenes is overkill! The character development is strong and the story is well-fleshed out but if some of the sex scenes were removed the storyboard flow so much better.