Review: The SEAL’s Secret Lover and The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian by Anne Calhoun

seals secret lover by anne calhounFormat read: eARC from Netgalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance, military romance
Series: Alpha Ops #1
Length: 118 pages
Publisher: Swerve
Date Released: February 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The first in the Alpha Ops novella series that features an alpha Navy SEAL who meets his match in a buttoned-up firecracker who is hiding a passionate side.

Logistics director Rose Powell agreed to chaperone her grandmother on a guided tour of Roman ruins on one condition: her brother Jack would come with her. But when Jack backs out, his best friend and fellow SEAL Keenan Parker takes his place. Without a working cell phone, Rose’s orderly world drifts into dreamy days and hot, secret nights in Keenan’s bed. Keenan left the Navy but never made it any farther than Istanbul, much less to a viable future. Until he does, he’ll show Rose things she didn’t know about herself. Can he give his heart and his future to the woman he promised his best friend he’d never touch?

 

seals rebel librarian by anne calhounFormat read: eARC from Netgalley
Formats available: ebook
Genre: contemporary romance, military romance
Series: Alpha Ops #2
Length: 124 pages
Publisher: Swerve
Date Released: March 1st 2016
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo

The second in the Alpha Ops novella series that features an alpha Navy SEAL and the librarian who brings him to his knees.

Jack Powell never planned on leaving the Navy, but his final mission as a SEAL left him with a tremor and a bad case of nerves. He’s home, taking some college classes and trying to figure out what comes next when he meets Erin Kent, a divorced college librarian with an adventurous bucket list and a mission to get her ex-husband’s voice out of her head. Jack guides Erin through skydiving and buying the motorcycle of her dreams, blithely accepting Erin’s promise that their relationship is purely temporary. But when Jack gets the chance to go back into the shadowy world of security contracting, can he convince Erin to break her word and join him on the adventure of a lifetime?

My Review:

I’m reviewing these two books together because I read them back to back. And as they are part of the same series, in the overarching story they end up bookending each other, and I mean that in a good way.

Also, honestly, I read The SEAL’s Secret Lover because I really, really wanted to read The SEAL’s Rebel Librarian, being a librarian myself. I wanted to see if the author went to stereotype city, or if she created a realistic character I might either want to know or want to have been. Being a completist, I just couldn’t read book 2 in the series without reading book 1 first, and I’m glad I did.

The two books together are the story of two ex-SEAL’s who are trying to figure out what’s next in their lives. On their last mission, the third member of their team was killed, and although we never learn the details, it’s clear that his death created a breaking point for both Keenan and Jack. Keenan musters out and goes into private security work in Istanbul, while Jack is so shaken up that he is literally shaking – his nerves are shot and his hands tremble. He goes home to heal, to recover, and to figure out what his next step might be now that the one he had planned on – going into the private security business with Keenan – is out of the picture.

These two stories together are also the story of a brother and sister, Jack and Rose, who survived their childhood with an alcoholic mother and an absent father, but still take care of each other and the Grandmother who provided the stability in their lives. But while Jack managed to have a childhood in the midst of chaos, Rose sacrificed hers in order to raise Jack and provide a steady home life for her much younger brother. Now in her early 30s, Rose’s life is proscribed by duty as she is still trying to care for Jack and their Grannie.

The two stories are also both sex-into-love stories. In both of the relationships that begin in this series, Keenan and Rose, and then Jack and Erin, fall into bed first, thinking that what is happening between them, can only be a fling. Until it isn’t.

As I said at the beginning, the stories are mirror images. In Secret Lover, Rose is shepherding her Grannie and Grannie’s two best friends on a whirlwind tour of Turkey. Grannie is a big fan of Rumi’s poetry, and she wants to visit his birthplace and shrine, while seeing all the other sites. Grannie and her friends are working through their “bucket lists”, and Turkey seems to have been at the top.

Jack was supposed to have come with them, to be tour guide. But he begged off and convinced his buddy Keenan to take his place on the tour. Keenan is charmed by the old ladies, and falls head over heels for Rose, even though he can’t admit it at first, even to himself. Rose falls just as hard for Keenan, but her life is back in Lancaster, while Keenan is based in Istanbul. For them to have a chance, Keenan needs to decide that it’s time to come home, and that Rose is who and where he wants to come home to.

On the flip side, when Keenan comes to Lancaster to take a job as head of security for the energy company that Rose works for, he leaves his job in Istanbul, and his apartment, vacant.

Jack meets Erin, a librarian at the local college who is freshly divorced and has a list of her own. She wants to do all the things that her ex-husband smothered out of her, like buy a motorcycle, jump out of an airplane, and travel to Europe. It’s not that she wants to take a walk on the wild side, it’s that Erin has a wild side that she wants to let out, but isn’t quite sure how. The suffocating voice of her ex in her head second guesses her every move. So when Jack, taking a few classes and researching a term paper, sees her hunting for a motorcycle on the internet, he can’t resist offering the sexy librarian some advice about makes and models.

In helping to foster Erin’s first forays into adrenaline junkie-hood, Jack finds himself again. When he’s seeing Erin’s thrill at riding a motorcycle for the first time, or skydiving for the first time, her adrenaline and her sheer joy brings him all the way back to life. In re-experiencing her thrills and chills, he finds the balance he needs and the steadiness in his hands and head to go back to the work he loves. He’s ready to pick up that job and apartment in Istanbul that Keenan left behind.

The only question left for Jack is whether he can convince Erin to take her wild self with him.

Escape Rating (for both books) B: As sex-into-love stories, the sizzle in both books is turned way, way up. These are couples who both have immediate chemistry, and decide that acting on it in a way that supposedly won’t affect their regular lives is the best thing they could do in their circumstances.

Rose thinks what she has with Keenan is just a vacation fling. Erin promised Jack that their relationship would be “no strings attached” and she has vowed that she won’t break any more promises, not to anyone else, and not to herself, because that’s what her ex accused her of. (She really needs to stop listening to that bastard’s voice in her head!)

Rose knows that when she leaves Istanbul, she wants a future with Keenan. But until he decides to come home for his own reasons, he isn’t ready. When Erin figures out that she has fallen for Jack, she won’t break her promise to him, not until he asks her to.

Another way in which these stories are parallel is that in both cases the heroine is slightly older than the hero. It’s a complete non-issue in Rose and Keenan’s relationship, because their relationship begins in circumstances that are outside of both of their “normal” lives. For Erin and Jack, it does matter, because the question is whether Jack is just part of Erin’s post-divorce freedom, or whether they are building something real.

I liked that Rose doesn’t turn her life over to be with Keenan, because that’s not the best thing for either of them. And that Erin, on the other hand, does turn her life upside down, but it’s with Jack and not for Jack. He just gives her the opportunity to do what she’s wanted all along.

Both of these stories are fun, and a great way to while away an afternoon or evening. The titles are cute, and the stories both come to terrific HEAs. And yes, that Rebel Librarian feels like a real librarian who must have some great stories to tell.

Review: By Break of Day by M.L. Buchman + Giveaway

Review: By Break of Day by M.L. Buchman + GiveawayBy Break of Day (The Night Stalkers, #15) Formats available: paperback, ebook
Series: Night Stalkers #7
Pages: 384
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on February 2nd 2016
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Captain Kara Moretti flies high in her MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAV. It is the Night Stalkers' eyes and ears in the sky, and being behind a remote control and one step back from the action has always worked for her… and her love life.
Right until Captain Justin Roberts walks straight through her shields and into her heart. Justin is a pilot who loves being right in the middle of the fray. Together they'll go where life, limb, and heart are at risk in the Mongolian wilderness. But Justin learns there's something more important than missions - Kara.

My Review:

night is mine by ml buchmanI didn’t quite stay up until break of day to finish this book, but it was close. I’ve enjoyed every single book in Buchman’s Night Stalkers series, starting with The Night Is Mine, reviewed here four(!) years ago.

And one of the best parts of this series is that it has become real in those four years. At the time that The Night is Mine was published, heroine and decorated chopper pilot Emily Beale of SOAR was aspirational and inspirational, but not possible. Now she and her sisters-in-SOAR are still inspirational, but are an achievable goal. All combat positions, including SOAR, have been opened to women. Readers no longer have to check their reality-meters at the door to fall for this series.

For those who love military romance, the Night Stalkers are consistent winners.

In this seventh full-length entry into the series (it’s the 15th story overall, but half are novellas or shorter) we have two new Captains in the Night Stalkers. Captain Kara Moretti is the Night Stalkers first drone pilot, and Justin Roberts pilots the biggest bird that the Night Stalkers fly.

At the beginning of the book, Kara is also conducting her first mission as the unit’s new Air Mission Commander. It’s a daunting job, made even more pressure-filled if she pauses to think about her predecessors in that job; the legendary Mark Henderson (story in The Night is Mine) and his equally impressive successor, Lieutenant Archie Stevenson (story in I Own the Dawn), now both retired and fire fighting in Oregon.

i own the dawn by ml buchmanBut Kara’s first foray as AMC, a testing and training run for the U.S. Turkish allies, is a success, and cements her new position. It is also the first time we see Kara get into the heads of all of her pilots as well as deducing the “enemy’s” traps with seconds to spare.

And after the mission, we see the progress of Captain Justin Roberts low, slow and sometimes confused pursuit of Kara Moretti finally trip him up and flare into life.

These are two people who probably wouldn’t have met outside of SOAR. Moretti is Brooklyn born and raised, and her Italian-American family owns a neighborhood Italian grocery and pasta shop. Everyone not working the store is a cop.

Roberts is from the other end of the country, and the other end of everything. He’s Texas through-and-through, to the point of wearing a cowboy hat whenever he doesn’t need his helmet on. His family owns ranches, including the best Quarter Horse breeding ranch in the country. In spite of his cowboy manners, Justin is from old money, and lots of it. He just doesn’t throw it around.

Roberts and Moretti bond over a black-in-black operation in the Israeli desert. At first, it seems as if their mission was a complete success. Until everyone involved in that mission; Colonel Michael Gibson of Delta, the high-level Army Intelligence unit they extracted, and the even higher-level pain-in-the-ass and button-pusher who ordered that mission all show up back in their lives with the news that enemy agents have infiltrated both the top-secret Israeli base and the American Army unit posted alongside them. It’s up to Kara to command a mission to take care of all the leaks, even as she doesn’t want to think about exactly what plugging those leaks means.

Until it all goes completely pear-shaped, and Kara is forced to shoot down Justin’s chopper as he seemingly goes rogue. She figures out exactly what he means to her, as she makes the call that blows his bird out of the sky.

Escape Rating B+: This series isn’t just good, it’s consistently good. When I pick one up, I know that I’ll be treated to a sweet/hot romance, a hero and heroine who are equals in everything, an immersion into a military family that I’ve grown to like and respect, and pulse-pounding action with guns blazing and lives on the line.

At the beginning of this story, the women of SOAR get together and let Kara know that her odds of not falling for Justin Roberts are just not in her favor. It’s a moment that shows the bond between all of these spectacular and spectacularly capable heroines. And it also lampshades the fact that every woman who joins their unit inevitably falls in love with one of the men either in or attached to SOAR. And that their marriages, unlike many military marriages, have chance of lasting because the rules for Special Operations are just a bit loose. These couples deploy together, not halfway around the world from each other. The requirements to get into this unit are just too stringent to force anyone out just because they married someone who understands what they do, because their spouse is just as highly qualified and mission critical as they are.

Perhaps this is barely plausible, but it is absolutely marvelous just the same.

Like so many of the heroes and heroines in this series, neither Kara nor Justin has led a charmed life, in spite of the relatively happy families they both come from. Kara reflects her experience as a woman in the military – she is constantly looking out for someone to treat her as a sex-object instead of an officer. She’s happy that the incidences of such treatment are much fewer and farther between in SOAR than anywhere she has served.

She’s also conscious that while the unit treats her as a pilot, in fact she doesn’t put herself in harm’s way the way the others do. Her remote controlled birds are crucial to the operations of their missions, but her own life is safely back at base on the U.S.S. Peleliu while those missions are conducted. And Kara always has her guard up, because as much as her family loves her, they are always trying to shove her back into the expected box, and she resists and resents it, even though she loves them.

Justin lost a helicopter and his entire crew to a terrorist who threw high explosives into the bird in a supposedly safe location. Everyone except Justin died, and his back is a mass of burns and scar tissue. He’s lost his sense of inviolability, and he still mourns the men and women he lost every day.

So these two wounded people find each other, fall in love, and learn about each other after the fact, then have to figure out whether it’s just a fling or if they have a future. When it seems like that future may have ended before it begins, the reader’s heart breaks with Kara’s, even though one is almost positive that it can’t end that way. And it doesn’t.

Finding out who the real villain is behind all this mess, and watching him get his just desserts, was the icing on a very tasty cake.

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Sourcebooks is giving away a Night Stalkers book bundle to one lucky entrant on this tour!

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Review: Night Hawk by Lindsay McKenna + Giveaway

Review: Night Hawk by Lindsay McKenna + GiveawayNight Hawk (Jackson Hole, #10) by Lindsay McKenna
Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Jackson Hole #10
Pages: 384
Published by HQN Books on December 29th 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Once upon a ranch in Wyoming…
After losing his comrade, Sergeant Gil Hanford thought a visit to the man's widow would be the decent way to honor his late friend. But Gil found more than comfort in Kai Tiernan—he had always secretly desired beautiful Kai, but a sudden, mutual passion helped assuage their grief… until duty reared its head, removing him from her arms, seemingly forever.
Four years later, Kai is starting over at the Triple H Ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Born a rancher, she is looking for a new beginning—but her new boss is unforgivably familiar. Kai has tried to move past the memory of what happened between her and Gil, even though she's never forgiven him for leaving her. But even as they begin their journey toward something new and oh-so-uncertain, a shadow emerges, determined to claim Kai for itself.

My Review:

Night Hawk is a combination of several themes that I have come to enjoy recently. It’s a small town/contemporary western romance, with two strong ex-military protagonists. And it has just a touch of romantic suspense thrown in.

Also, this particular story in McKenna’s Jackson Hole series is a second-chance-at-love story, and I’m always a sucker for one of those.

However, this is book 10 in an ongoing series, and I’ll confess to not having read any of the preceding books. I picked it up because I read and enjoyed some of McKenna’s romantic suspense in the past, and this looked good. While I know that I missed some nuances among the continuing characters by not having read the rest of the series, this was still a good place to start. Both of the main characters in the book are also new to the series, the ranch and the area. Our hero, Gil Hanford, has only been at Triple H a few months, and heroine Kai Tiernan comes to the ranch as a new mechanic and wrangler.

There was one part of the story where I think my previous unfamiliarity made a difference, and I’ll get back to that after the rating. But for the most part, as we are mostly following Kai’s perspective in this story, as people, places and things are introduced to her, they are introduced to any new readers to the series.

When Kai meets foreman Gil Hanford at the Triple H, it is far from their first meeting. And there lies the romantic and sexual tension in the story, as well as most of the arguments, hurt feelings and distrust.

Like many of the men who have come to work at the Triple H, Gil isn’t merely ex-military, he’s ex-Special Forces. And so was Kai’s late husband Sam. Gil and Sam were in the same unit, and Gil was the one to comfort Kai when Sam was killed in action. Kai was also stationed at Baghram, she was one of the mechanics who fixed vehicles on base for all the units stationed there, including the Special Forces Teams.

As long as Sam was alive, Gil and Kai were never anything more than friends. Gil may have been just as much in love with Kai as his buddy was, but he never let it show. At least not until five memorable days and glorious nights, a year after Sam was killed, when Gil’s brother Rob was also KIA. Gil and Kai shared something special, something that was more than just sex, but still contained a whole lot of heat between the sheets.

On the final morning, Gil disappeared, and Kai felt used. Who wouldn’t? But now they are both out of the service and the small world of western ranches has brought them both to the same place at the same time. With a chance for all the explanations that Gil never gave. And a chance for the wounds to heal so that they can discover if what they had was real, and if it can last.

At least until they discover that someone out there has both of them in his sights, and he’s aiming to kill.

Escape Rating B: First of all, I really loved the atmosphere of the Triple H Ranch. It just seems like a really great place with terrific people. The owner, Talon Holt, is himself ex-Special Forces, and he has a track record of hiring his fellow veterans. He is also struggling, trying to bring his family’s ranch back to profitability after years of neglect. In addition to caring for his mother, who is battling cancer, Talon has also kept his military dog, Zeke, a Belgian Malinois with a grip like steel and a heart of gold.

The Triple H is a place where anyone would be proud and happy to work, and it makes a great setting.

I also enjoyed that this story has a secondary romance between Talon’s mother Sandy and their combination cook and accountant, Cass. Just because Sandy has had some tough knocks in her life, doesn’t mean she isn’t ready to try again, as long as it’s the right man. Cass and Sandy’s love story was sweet and made a nice counterpoint to the sometimes angry hot and sometimes smokin’ hot romance between Gil and Kai.

While there were reasons for Gil’s abandonment of Kai way back when, he did compound the issue by staying away after his duties were done. That his abrupt departure all too closely resembled Kai’s father’s treatment of her created some really deep wounds. They have a lot of trust to recover before they had a chance at happiness, and the author worked through that in the story.

However, the suspense angle of the story hit this reader new to the series as a bit out of left field. It also included an unfortunate misunderstandammit. Everyone in town seems to know that Chuck Harper is a villain. But everyone equally protects Kai from learning that Harper has a history of becoming obsessed with women and making them disappear when they reject him. They all think that just informing Kai that Harper is under investigation for drug trafficking will be enough to keep her away from the dude. At the same time, Harper is courting Kai by offering the services of his ace machine shop at bargain rates, and Kai, and the Triple H, need access to prime tools to keep their old farm equipment operational. The reader sees trouble coming miles away, because Kai doesn’t have the information to evaluate the true threat.

I also think that Harper’s dirty deeds have roots in earlier stories that I haven’t read. So his part of this plot loomed much more annoying than large because of my and Kai’s lack of information.

I still really enjoyed Kai and Gil’s story, and I’ll be happy to take another trip out to the Triple H.

~~~~~~ GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

Lindsay is giving away a copy of Wolf Haven, book number 9 in the Jackson Hole series, to one lucky U.S. or Canadian commenter.

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This post is part of a TLC book tour. Click on the logo for more reviews and features.

Review: Target Engaged by M.L. Buchman + Giveaway

Review: Target Engaged by M.L. Buchman + GiveawayTarget Engaged (Delta Force, #1) Formats available: paperback, ebook, audiobook
Series: Delta Force #1
Pages: 384
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on December 1st 2015
Purchasing Info: Author's WebsitePublisher's WebsiteAmazonBarnes & NobleKoboBookshop.org
Goodreads

Kyle Reeves was trained by his father to do one thing: be the very best. So he isn't daunted by the Delta Force selection process—the toughest military training on earth—or when the very best woman falls into his arms.
Carla Anderson buried her heart in Arlington when she lost her mother and brother to combat. She wants nothing more than to give her all in the line of duty until she too is laid down beside them, and Delta training might just be the challenge she's looking for. Little did she know, the true challenge was coming in the shape of a sexy, alpha-male military operative.
Surviving brutal training is just the beginning of the merciless path to Delta, but it's also the dawn of the hottest passion Kyle and Carla have ever known…

My Review:

As I was reading this book, the U.S. Secretary of Defense announced on December 3, 2015 that starting in early 2016 all U.S. combat military positions will be open to women, including the Rangers, the SEALs, SOAR and Delta. So, while this book is certainly fiction, it looked forward at something that could happen in the near future.

Three women have already passed Army Ranger training, so that day may be much sooner than anyone thought just a few years ago.

Back to the present day, and the book…

bring on the dusk by ml buchmanTarget Engaged is the first book in the author’s Delta Force series, which is spin-off of his awesome Night Stalkers series. Colonel Michael Gibson of Delta Force was the hero of Bring on the Dusk (reviewed here) in the Night Stalkers series, and he serves as the main bridge between the two units. Not that there aren’t occasional appearances by other members of the Night Stalkers, but Gibson is the most obvious link.

He’s the one who makes the final judgment on whether these candidates for “the Unit” actually pass one of their more important final exams, even if that exam is only partially concealed within an interview. They are all training for Delta, they are supposed to see the wheel within the wheel within the wheel.

In this first book in the series, we’re introduced to a small group of Delta candidates who become a tight-knit force within their class. Although the focus is on Carla Anderson, who plans to be the first woman to make Delta, and Kyle Reeves, the natural leader of their contingent, the other guys come in for enough pages to make them interesting possible leads for future books in the series.

This is a story with two threads to one. One is the training of Delta. For those out there who love books where the hero or heroine goes through intensive training, there’s a lot here to love. All the members of “the Unit” are in training from the moment they arrive at the ass-end of Ft. Bragg until the day the survivors graduate – or flunk out at the last hurdle. Just over 100 start, only seven finish, and only five survive their final training. By survive I don’t mean some die, although many of the ones that fail the test wish they had. But out of the original cadre, only five go the distance. A few are sent back to their units with recommendations that they come back after either some additional training, or just after they heal their injuries, but most just fail.

Carla starts out as the only woman in the Delta recruiting class, and she’s the first woman to finish. The story is very real when it talks about how she makes it – not just that she goes through the exact same grueling training as the men, having to succeed or fail under the exact same standards, but they way that she also has to handle being the only woman, and the way that she has learned to cope with being one of the few women in what is still a man’s world.

But when they graduate, and the group is ready to set out on their first mission, Carla finally gives in to the steaming attraction that she feels for fellow Delta operator Kyle Reeves, and it is here that she breaks pattern. From this point on in the story we have some kick-ass military romance, as Carla and Kyle explore what they can be to each other, as well as how they and their relationship fit into the team that Kyle has built and Delta has honed.

When their first missions put them each in danger of losing their lives, they both have to face what it means to be in love with someone who risks their life every single day, and who you might have to deliberately send in harm’s way for the greater good.

Escape Rating B+: I loved both halves of this story – the training half and the mission half, but they are completely different.

During the entire training component, both Kyle and Carla are extremely aware of the heat they generate together, and they do absolutely nothing about it. A relationship between them while they are in the initial training/weeding out process will send them both back to their previous units, and probably scuttle Carla’s entire career. Also any relationship would be a distraction that they have neither the time, the energy or the privacy for until the initial phase of training is over.

Also, it’s not just that neither of them has much experience at real relationships, but that Carla specifically has no plans to ever be in a real relationship. A lot of the later tension between Carla and Kyle is that she had no plans to ever love anyone again, and is completely unwilling to admit that she loves Kyle and isn’t ready to go on without him.

One of the things I found slightly jarring about this story is that I couldn’t realistically see how a woman who is portrayed the way that Carla is would fall into a relationship with someone in her unit. While it isn’t against regulations – they are both the same rank and not officially in a reporting relationship – there is always a danger that the woman in any such relationship will be considered less capable simply because of the relationship. And if it fails, she’s the one who will lose rank or status, not him.

On that other hand, once I let go of my disbelief, the missions they went on were page-turning gut twisters from beginning to end. They go after bad guys who really need to be brought down, and they finish them off with style. Their second mission had me on the edge of my seat, and I loved watching them figure out how to save themselves and each other with not much more than grit, determination and a little help from some friends in the CIA and Mossad.

In the end, Target Engaged reminded me a bit of The Night is Mine (reviewed here), the first book in the Night Stalkers series. Night reads more than a bit like Stargate fanfiction, and Target Engaged has the undercover agent vibe of some NCIS fanfic. I love them all.

~~~~~~ EXCERPT ~~~~~~

If you have been appropriately intrigued by my review, Sourcebooks has a treat for you. The first six chapters of Target Engaged are available as a free sampler. To get started with Delta Force, just click on the link at the end:

Dear Reader,
Welcome to my newest series: the first women of Delta Force. I can’t begin to tell you how much fun this was to write.
Most of us know little more about Delta Force than the Chuck Norris movies (which leave a lot to be desired) or perhaps we only know the name. In researching my Night Stalkers series, I kept running into these guys. They are the elite of Special Operations Forces. They are at a level of SEAL Team 6, and most would argue they were even beyond that. They are the ghost and shadow warriors who helped take down drug lord Pablo Escobar, capture Noriega, were undoubtedly behind the locating of Saddam Hussein, and are the main reason that Al-Qaeda abruptly stopped being a topic in the Iraq War when over three thousand of their leaders were swept off the board.
Yet the Pentagon states that they don’t exist. Fascinating.
And while they often work with undercover female operatives, no woman has yet managed to kick in the front door on one of the most arduous selection programs in the military.
I decided to change that.
Carla Anderson stepped forward to take the challenge. She is a not a woman out to prove she can match any man, she’s out to prove that she can beat them at their own game. And that was the first thing that I loved about writing this series.
In the Night Stalkers, the women were strong, excellent, and determined.
To be a Delta Force woman, Carla had to add enough attitude and drive to plow through all obstacles which just made her so much fun. Nothing was off the table when it came to her attitude or her actions.
And that was the second thing I came to love about this series launcher, Target Engaged. Being Delta Force, they really do operate outside so many bounds. They are sent to do the tasks that no one else can. To that I added the additional challenge that Robert Ludlum gave to Jason Bourne (though I’m quoting the movie): “I don’t send you to kill. I send you to be invisible. I send you because you don’t exist.” I’m pretty convinced that this is part of Delta’s mission.
It is occasionally said by retired Delta Force operators (as the on-duty ones never speak): “If we’d been sent in to take down bin Laden, you still wouldn’t know how it was done.” To bring that to life gave me a permission as a writer to run my characters into hard and strange places and be just a little gonzo doing it.
But writing is a give and take, and I can’t begin to tell you how much the characters I created shaped my telling of this story. I like to think that they had as much fun as I did bringing this story to life.
I hope that you enjoy the reading even half as much as I enjoyed the writing!
M.L. Buchman (the Oregon Coast, November 2015)

Get to know the Carla, and the entire Delta Force team by reading the first SIX chapters of TARGET ENGAGED for free! Just click here to download them! To get you started, we’ve included the first few pages below:

~~~~~~ TOURWIDE GIVEAWAY ~~~~~~

The treats never end with any of M.L. Buchman’s books. Sourcebooks is giving away an M.L. Buchman book bundle to one lucky entrant on this tour!

a Rafflecopter giveaway