Warrior's Cross

I've read the Cut & Run" series by this author and loved, loved, loved it...okay I was obsessed with it. Enough to have read it 5 times and still counting. When I saw this new series I was very anxious to get a copy. I found that was easier said than done. Amazon advertises the price of the paperback at $330.00 Why? Heaven only knows and I'm obviously not on Heaven's "to know" list. I'm hoping that the decimal is misplaced. I recognized Julian & Cameron from Armed & Dangerous...so it was a little like visiting old friends. The writing is as usual, wonderful...the scenes are vivid. You never have so much description that the story lags. You can tell from the cover that there's going to be men with guns on the scene, but the suspense is show more slowly draw out. The author is so good at setting up the characters but it's never obvious where the story is going, so the surprise is still genuine at each plot twist. The secretive job is never truly explained but it's always implied. With other books, this can be a drawback but here it only served to put the reader in the shoes of the main character. Waiting for much more but not at $300.00 for a paperback:) show less

All the excitement of Armed & Dangerous left me so fired up, that I wasn't quite ready to relinquish Julian and Cameron. I wanted to know what all the heavy hints were all about, not to mention finally see one of their physical encounters to the end, instead of just the teasing glimpses. You don't just make those characters all lovey-dovey and hot-n-bothered, only to have the scene play out off screen! I don't care that they weren't the main couple, that was just mean!

Unfortunately, all I ended up getting here were a lot of longing stares, cryptic statements, playful puppies, and way too many fade-out sex scenes. Was there a hard-limit for on-screen intercourse, that the authors had to follow? Because all I got from it was frustration, show more on top of my overall boredom.

Speaking of boredom, why was the story only told from Cameron's point of view?! I mean, the guy was a waiter with basically no life outside his work?? Sure, some pining can go a long way to achieve those yummy stomach-butterflies, but too much of it is just painful(ly dull) to go through.

Score: 2.3/5 stars

Nowhere near the excitement of the sequel, just cute, fluffy, and towards the end, rather heavy-handed with the soap-opera tropes. show less

I liked Julian Cross, he was a wonderful characture. Cameron and Julian were so sweet and cute together, I got cavities. Well written and paced. Only problem I ran into was, I kept forgetting Cameron was a guy. This is definietly a book written by women for women. But still a fast and enjoyable read.

Wonderfully complex characters! The plot was good but the characters made this book come alive. I'd love to see where Julian and Cameron's story goes from here.

I'm a fan of both Abigail Roux and Madeleine Urban they excel at developing their characters and endowing them with personality and an emotional depth that draws me into their lives and into the story - but this book completely misses the mark for me. I couldn't connect with either Julian or Cameron. I just didn't like either one, especially Cameron - his constant insecurity and worry over why Julian would find him attractive or have any interest in him set my teeth on edge. Neither the story nor the characters held my interest. This book is an exception for me with these writers - Caught Running and the Cut & Run series are fantastic books that I've worn out the pages from re-reading.

I'm kind of divided about this story. I attempted to read it once before (2010-ish), but I didn't I get more than half or 2/3 of the way through. That is not a reflection of the novel itself (I just get easily distract by shiny things).

Anyway...I am now (some would say *finally* reading Cut & Run, and a little birdie has informed me Julian Cross and Cameron Jacob make an appearance in [b:Armed & Dangerous|13246997|Armed & Dangerous (Cut & Run, #5)|Abigail Roux|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1336877024s/13246997.jpg|18447540] (among other later volumes), so I thought I'd give it another go, because I'm a little OCD like that:

Alright, I liked the characters (Julian, Cameron, Preston, Blake, dogs *and* cats). I wasn't blown away by any of show more them (though I really liked Preston, but that might have been because he reminded me a little of someone else I'm quite enamoured of).

It is a good novel, it has a well-paced plot. If anything detracted from my enjoyment, it was the fact that I read it smack in the middle of Cut & Run. And it's not so much that the action and excite for those novels is higher (though it is) but that the relationship of the two main characters is different (it has more time to develop, but them, by the very nature of being who they are and having different personalities, have a different story).

Julian and Cameron are different people and have a much more low key kind of story. Plus there's the fact that for much of the story, we see the events as they unfold from Cameron's POV, and Cameron doesn't really know who Julian is, what his life is like, etc...

We have a case of opposite (the assassin and the normal, everyday guy). It's a little more complicated than that, but as we don't see things from Julian'sperspective we can't always see that.

Still, it's a good story, and I won't mind seeing them in Ty and Zane's universe (though I'm having all sorts of visual's about clashing personalities and how misunderstandings might ensue)

I guess we'll have to see how that shakes out... show less

This was one of the first m/m romance that made me say WOW! A real plot. A real story, not just sex scenes strung together. I've now read this book multiple time and it still gets me. 4.5 stars