The Heir and the Spare by Emily Albright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Heir and the Spare fits into one of my newfound favorite subgenres, romance with royals. I am by no means a royal watcher but, I do love these modern royal romance stories. I received a copy of The Heir and the Spare through Edelweiss and loved it. It is the story of Evie who is accepted at Oxford not only following in both her parents' footsteps but also following one of her mom's requests. Evie's mother gave her some really poignant and heartfelt letters that include some hints from her time in Oxford and also about her life. Evie does not know much about her mom's family and neither does her father so he is not able to answer many questions. As Evie follows what amounts to a quest to learn more about her mom's past she learns more about herself. Along the way she meets an amazing man, that turns out to be the youngest prince of England. This appears to be loosely based upon the real royal family so it allows the author some liberty that allows the author to give the story the kind of ending that we all love. Of course, Evie meets some great friends at Oxford, all colorful and well-developed. There has to be at least one love-interest that wants a prince all to herself so there is some contention. But, this woman is willing to fight dirty and causes Evie no small amount of pain as things are exposed that she was still trying to learn about her family and herself.

The Golem of Paris by Jonathan Kellerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Golem of Paris is the second installment in the Jacob Lev books by Jonathon Kellerman along with is son Jesse Kellerman. I received a copy in exchange for an honest review. I read The Golem of Paris on the first leg of a flight overseas which are flights that I typically cannot sleep despite their length. In this book, Jacob is in his new assignment where it appears he is being punished for failure to follow orders of his new team lead in the special ops team he was moved to in the first book. Despite being reassigned to the traffic division, the members of his special ops team are still keeping an eye on him because they expect Mai, the person they are trying to catch to reach out to Jacob again. They are not sure of Jacob's loyalty and whether he is willing to divulge any communication he has had with Mai.

Jacob is moved back to the special operations team where he is given another task that appears to be just busy work, but he comes across a case that was intentionally left for him as he scanned old cases onto the network. It is a cold case where a mother and her young son were murdered and left out in the open. Jacob begins investigating on his own time and eventually convinces the team leader that it is a case that should be investigated officially. While he investigates he is also spending time with his mother at the nursing facility. He tries different tactics to reach her and finally seems to reach her when she accidentally sees the details of the case he is investigating. It eventually leads him to a current like crime that just occurred in Paris, France. He travels to Paris with one of the team members to watch over him. Jacob finds that the case involves a Russian oligarch that is going to be hard to reach.

As the reader is given a deeper glimpse into Jacob's relationship with his mother the story delves into his mother's history. We meet her as a teen still living at home with her parents who are both very damaged by their history as Jews in Eastern Europe. As a result, Bina was never raised as Jewish though she is aware that it is her family's history. We see how Jacob's parents met and learn about how his mother was damaged mentally. What Jacob finds in his current investigation eventually dovetails with his mother's history and we learn some shocking things about Bina. Jacob also learns things that allow him to give his relationship with his father a second look. The Golem of Paris has a great mystery and also contains some urban fantasy aspects that touch on Jewish mythology. The story is action-packed and does contain some violent aspects that almost have a horror aspect. I look forward to reading more in this series.

Fatal Exchange by Cindy M. Hogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fatal Exchange was one of the books I chose to take with me to read during a long flight overseas. It was a great choice because not only did it keep me entertained but it also made the flight seem much shorter than the 8 hours it took. I received a free copy of Fatal Exchange in exchange for an honest review. It is the third installment in the Christy series about a teenage undercover agent. In Fatal Exchange, she is stationed in Paris where she is working with her team to retrieve a flash drive from a very reluctant French informant who says he has information that puts the entire nation of France in danger. Christy is wearing one of her disguises and moves in to retrieve the drive when things go terribly wrong. Christy's team is supportive of her and believe in her ability to turn things around with the information she was able to retrieve. But, her current director disagrees and suspends her from active duty pending the arrival of her handler who has been MIA for four months. Christy believes that she knows how to turn things around and goes undercover without any active backup in the field where she infiltrates an underground pickpocketing group that turns out to be more dangerous than she could have ever imagined. When she turns up information that she cannot act on alone she goes back to her director and convinces her that the agency should be officially involved to follow-through with the work Christy began. Information is uncovered that makes the mission even more dangerous for not just Christy but also for an organization that reaches the highest levels of the French government.

Fatal Exchange has some really interesting characters. Christy, of course, is a bit of a loose cannon, but she is extremely gifted. The other team members only have cursory descriptions that are more related to their work personalities and duties so we do not know much about them yet other than that they work well together and have good chemistry. Her handler is someone she has deep feelings for and it is a relationship that cannot go beyond co-workers because it is against policy and could cause them to lose their jobs. There is a new addition to the team that comes from Christy's past and their relationship is so volatile that it is not quite clear whether Summer will have her back when things get really bad or if she will leave Christy hanging when it really counts. Fatal Exchange is a great addition to this series and it is full of action and it contains a great story. I had one thread I was not quite sure was answered but, it was not enough to change how much I loved the story.

JET: Oblivion by Kim Cresswell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

How can anyone go wrong with a Jet book? Impossible. I received an early release copy as part of a blog tour for Kim Creswell. Oblivion is a novella with a crossover that contained some of the characters from the Whitney Steel books and Russell Blake's Jet. This mini book packs a ton of action and a great story. Hal and Angela, FBI agents from the Whitney Steel books are directed by their boss to "recruit" Jet to help them with a very critical mission in Columbia. There has already been a nuclear attack at one of the nuclear plants in the U.S. with many fatalities and intel says that more are to come. Chambers' intel says that the next one is coming from Columbia where terrorists have joined up with one of the drug cartels to deliver a nuclear bomb to the U.S. The goal is to get Jet to use her connections and knowledge from her time working for the Mossad in Columbia. Jet is very low-key now and has good reason to be, she now has a young daughter so she tries to stay hidden from her enemies. Jet never disappoints. Her character is dynamic, strong, both mentally and physically and even though it seems that you should not root for her it cannot be helped. Now, Angela and Hal are no slouches and they are fresh out of a mission in Columbia where there are bad memories of fighting and loss. They make a great team with Jet and I look forward to reading more of the Jet books and the Whitney Steel books.

Interview with Kim Creswell

How did you come to be interested in the JET Series Kindle World?

I’ve always been a huge fan of Russell Blake’s JET series and when I saw the opportunity to write a story with one of my favorite characters I jumped on it. No. I pounced!

The JET Series books are fast-paced action and adventure stories. What genre(s) do you explore in your story?

Action. Adventure. Thriller. It’s a fantastic mix of genres. I’ve always been told to write what you enjoy reading.

The JET series has been set all over the world… the Middle East, Asia, South American, the Caribbean, etc. Tell us about where you set your story, and why?

OBLIVION is set in California, Las Vegas, Panama, and Colombia. I chose California because I needed a nuclear plant located on the west coast for the story. Las Vegas was chosen because it’s my two main characters usual stomping grounds. Colombia worked well due to the drug cartel and was also an interesting setting choice to explore as a haven for terrorists coming from Yemen.

Tell us a little about your main character(s).

Hal Decker and Angela Donahue are my two crossover characters from the Whitney Steel series. They were first introduced in RETRIBUTION (A Whitney Steel Novel – Book #2) and met during a covert mission in Colombia while Hal was helping a good friend save his fiancee after she was kidnapped by the drug cartel.

Hal is a former FBI agent, elite sniper and an ex-marine. He’s a mellow kind of guy with soft voice and has a serious vibe to him. People who meet him aren’t sure if he is friend or foe. He’s brilliant and cunning. He reminds me of a younger Ron Perlman playing the character Luther Braxton in the TV show; The Blacklist.

Angela is thirty-three years old and ex-US military intelligence (surveillance/reconnaissance) who worked intelligence operations in numerous overseas environments as well as in South and Central America. She’s also the go-to-girl you call to help get you out of a hostile territory during a dangerous mission. Her specialty—exit plans. She’s pretty good at kicking butt too.

Did you decide to include any of the main characters from JET (Jet / Maya, Matt or Hannah?) If so, Why?

I decided to use JET and Hannah in OBLIVION. I wanted to show the softer side of JET as a mother who is forced into making a difficult decision to leave her daughter behind with strangers while she tries to stop a terrorist attack.

What major theme comes across the clearest in your story? Is this a theme found consistently in your other works?

The major theme in story is the will to survive. Whether it’s a character who is an alcoholic or a character who’s risking her life to stop a terrorist attack—in the end it’s all about survival.

I think it’s also the main theme in my other works as well. My books all have very strong female leads who have to fight to survive one way or another.

REFLECTION (A Whitney Steel Novel – Book #1)
RETRIBUTION (A Whitney Steel Novel – Book #2)
Amazon Author Page

JET is set in a world where many governments including Israel and the U.S. have covert operations including false flag and assassinations. Do you believe this is really the world we live in? If so, what are your thoughts on the future?

I do believe this is the world we live in and have been for a long time. With all the horror going on in the world it’s basically kill or be killed. As long as these covert operations are used to protect us and our security…why not? I think it would be naïve to think these types of missions haven’t happened, aren’t happening right now or are something new. As more dangerous threats pop up over time it makes it difficult to gauge what exactly the future holds.

What are you working on next?

I’m working on the first book of a four-book paranormal thriller series; Deadly Shadow (The Assassin Chronicles). The book features veteran FBI Agent Victory McClane and government assassin, Derrick Lynn, who has some pretty interesting paranormal abilities that make him unique and untraceable.

I’m also outlining the third book in the Whitney Steel Series which will release in the spring/summer of 2016. I promise it will be another crazy-action-injected-ride for investigative reporter, Whitney Steel.

Guest Post by Kim Creswell

Ingredients of a Great Thriller

Every now and then you read a novel that has you glued to the story because the action is moving at warp-speed and you're swept way not wanting to stop reading until you know how it turns out.  

The tension rises and you ride along with the characters feeling every blow right up until the climax.

In my opinion, the main ingredient in a great thriller is emotion. If you feel the story in your heart and gut then the author has done his or her job.

A great thriller is unpredictable. What if an FBI agent leading a murder investigation is the killer?

A great thriller has deadlines—the ticking clock. Will the FBI agent be caught before he kills again?

A great villain is a must-have in any thriller—a villain that stirs feelings of hatred, fear, disgust and sometimes empathy in the reader.

A main character who is worthy to fight the villain and hopefully win.

The setting and the action must also be believable for the reader because if the reader doesn't believe, the story will end.

In JET: OBLIVION the main characters, JET, Hal Decker and Angela Donahue are more than worthy to fight the villain, in this case, an al Qaeda terrorist cell working with the Sur del Calle cartel.

Each of the characters in the story have their own set of acquired skills. JET in her younger years spent time in juvenile hall then ordered to join the IDF, where she was recruited into the Mossad, and became an elite and deadly assassin. After leaving the Mossad she spent a great deal of time in the Caribbean, Central America and South America.

Hal Decker is a former FBI agent, elite sniper and an ex-marine. He's a mellow kind of guy with soft voice and has a serious vibe to him. People who meet him aren't sure if he is friend or foe. 

Angela Donahue is ex-US military intelligence (surveillance/reconnaissance) who worked intelligence operations in numerous overseas environments as well as in South and Central America. She's also the go-to-girl you call to help get you out of a hostile territory during a dangerous mission.

Together, they must beat the ticking clock—find the dirty bomb before it's smuggled out of Colombia and into the United States unleashing a deadlier attack at a second nuclear facility.

 As the story progresses, it's unpredictable, has deadlines, and a villain who evokes fear and  hatred combined with characters who are physically and emotionally worthy to battle the villain to the end.

Life was supposed to get easier for Tatum Duncan after she started dating Zach Bertano, but when Zach’s overbearing family starts trying to control her, Tatum finds herself pressured to “speak for” Zach. Worse, new guy Nigel is proving to be more tempting than Tatum wishes. One guy feels right … but the other makes her heart race! Which will Tatum give in to? Find out in GIRL DIVIDED TWO, the newest installment in Suzie T. Roos’s exciting series that blends edgy with a splash of innocence and a smidgen of humor, releasing October 20, 2015.

Rafflecopter for Tour Wide Giveaway: Suzie is offering visitors three awesome prizes during her Girl Divided Two Tour event! One (1) Grand Prize winner will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card, and two (2) Runners-up will receive an eBook copy of Girl Spoken For in the format of their choice.

To enter, please fill out the Rafflecopter form below:
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About Girl Divided Two:
Title: Girl Divided Two
Author: Suzie T. Roos Author
Location: St. Louis, MO
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Series: Spoken For #2
Release Date: October 20, 2015
Publisher: Jacques Day Publishing
Format: Digital eBook ISBN: 978-0-99629-423-2

Life was supposed to get easier…

At least that’s what Tatum had hoped. New school year, great boyfriend…and things with her and Zach were supposed to be wonderful. Fairytale wonderful. They aren’t. Zach’s overbearing family controls his every move—and worse, they want to control Tatum. Now Zach is pressuring her to ‘speak for him’, which means she’ll not only be committed to him but also his mob family. Where’s the guy she fell in love with? To make matters worse, her friends introduce her to Nigel, the new guy who is more tempting than Tatum wishes.

So which will Tatum give in to … coercion or temptation?

Available at: Amazon  |  Goodreads

About Suzie T. Roos:
T. Roos is from, and has settled in, St. Louis with her husband, two children and a number of foster pets at any given time. She and her husband have lived everywhere from Philadelphia, PA to out West in Santa Monica, CA. They’re thankful they could expose their children to different American lifestyles and cultures. Besides writing, Suzie’s hobbies include movies, traveling, and especially concert going with her husband and friends. She’s always been an animal lover and animal rights advocate. She is certified by FEMA in IS-00011.a Animal in Disasters: Community Planning. She’s also an active volunteer at the Humane Society of Missouri.

Connect with Suzie:  Website  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads