Marc (Hunter Squad) by Anna Hackett Format: eARC
Source: author
Formats available: paperback, ebook
Genres: action adventure romance, science fiction, science fiction romance
Series: Hunter Squad #3
Pages: 191
Published by Anna Hackett on March 24, 2026
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Amazon
Goodreads
We survived the invasion and beat the aliens. But they left something behind…
Killing monsters is what I do. Like my father before me, I fight side by side with my twin brother and my squad to protect our people.
Since the invasion, life is dangerous. I know how short it can be, so I live it to the fullest. I work hard on Hunter Squad, I party harder, I love a joke and a good time, and I never get tangled up in relationships. I watched my father’s grief at losing his brother. I almost lost my own twin. I’ll never let myself get in too deep.
Then our squad’s pilot crashes alone in monster-infested mountains.
Tiny, opinionated Colbie who’s the best pilot I know. A fierce redhead who never hesitates to stand up to me.
Everything changes. Every protective instinct I have is in overdrive. I have to find her and bring her home.
I’ll risk it all—monsters, raging rivers, dangerous terrain—but when the two of us are alone and fighting for survival, I realize that what’s most at risk is the one thing I’ve always guarded—my heart.
My Review:
This third book in the Hunter Squad series, after Jameson and North, takes a classic case of jeopardy and mixes it with an equally classic romance trope. Then it stirs the pot – and plot – by adding what appears to be the full reveal of the series’ overall big bad to create a pulse-pounding sci-fi adventure romance with a whole lot of heart at its, well, heart.
Colbie Erickson, the daughter of Hell Squad Hawk pilot Finn Erickson and Hell Squad drone pilot Lia Murphy, has followed in her dad’s footsteps – or perhaps that’s wings – to become the go-to pilot for Hell Squad’s successors, Hunter Squad. So when her quadcopter goes down in dangerous territory during a medical supplies run, Hunter Squad immediately deploys to find her.
Not that the whole squad doesn’t both respect AND care for her, but there’s something about Colbie that’s special to one Hunter Squad member in particular, Marc Jackson. Marc has never been able to stop thinking about Colbie, but he’s also never been able to stop thinking about the grief that his dad, Gabe Jackson, has lived with since the loss of his twin brother during the original Gizzida invasion. Marc keeps all his relationships one-night only and no strings attached because he’s afraid to get close to anyone.
He knows that Colbie deserves better than that. More importantly, so does Colbie.
But when Hunter Squad’s rescue of Colbie results in the discovery of a new Gizzida-Terran hybrid experimental base in the ruins of Hell Squad’s old Blue Mountain Base, the bond they have spent years trying to suppress flares to life. Because now, Colbie’s not just a squadmate he needles and teases and walks away from (to party with someone else), now she’s someone who has saved his life AND had his back in more than one firefight.
His head believes that he can’t risk the loss if something happens to her, but his heart has already taken that ride and isn’t coming back. The only question is whether he can get his head out of his angst enough to tell her how he feels before she walks away.
Or before the next time the monsters come out to play with them all. For keeps.
Escape Rating A-: So, I’m still not all that fond of the covers for this series. However, this third entry really hit a sweet spot for me and I’m very glad of it. I think that now that the ‘big bad’ has reared his ugly head (literally) in this follow up to the author’s Hell Squad series, the whole thing just reached back and grabbed that same set of vibes by the tail – and then set them on fire.
(Yes, I know I mixed my metaphors something fierce, but it worked for me. Just go with it.)
There are three elements that made this one work for me where the last one didn’t quite.
First is that the relationship between Colbie and Marc isn’t instalove or instalust. They’ve known each other forever, they’ve always been friends or at least friendly and have always gotten along. They tease each other, but it’s never mean-spirited and always done in friendship even if that friendship is also designed – by Marc – to keep Colbie at arm’s length.
Colbie may want more, but she wants more in a way that Marc obviously doesn’t. And she’s smart enough to know that and keep her heart safe as long as they maintain that slight distance.
The reasons they have kept to friendship feel real and organic to the story and their characters. The message she got from her parents’ relationship is just how terrific and supportive a forever love can be. The message Marc got from his dad is that grief never ends. Not that Gabe Jackson doesn’t love his wife and his family, but he’s never gotten over the loss of his twin and never will. Which doesn’t mean that he hasn’t had a fulfilling life, but that Marc has taken the wrong lesson from what he’s observed.
The relationship that develops between Colbie and Marc is a relationship of equals. The squad comes to get her, but she and Marc rescue each other. They’re not holding each other back AND they’re not pushing each other into places they don’t want to be.
And very much on my third hand, or claw, or whatever the Gizzida-Terran hybrids have, the new front in the old war heats up in this story in a fantastic way. In the first two books in this series, the fight was a bit, well, amorphous. It needed to happen, it was clearly happening, but to make it into a good story it needed a focus – and now it has one.
The potential is that it’s going to be even bloodier and more interesting this time around because the nature of the enemy has changed. The original Gizzida invaders could be kicked off Earth because they weren’t part of it. This new threat takes the worst of the old threat and makes it home grown in a way that’s going to make this fight harder and uglier and even more righteous when Hunter Squad wins.
Sooner or later. Probably later. Because there are just oodles of great story-telling possibilities, along with so many chances for steamy romance, just waiting to be told. In the end, it took TWENTY books for Hell Squad to get their job done. I wouldn’t be mad – at all – if Hunter Squad needs every bit as many.
