Today we are thrilled to share bestselling author Jane Harvey-Berrick’s all-new highly anticipated military romantic suspense novel, TICK TOCK
Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU | Paperback
Free in Kindle Unlimited
Synopsis
Forget SEALS, Marines, Fighter Pilots – I have the most dangerous job in the world. And I love it.
James Spears is part of an elite group who lives and breathes danger. Where others run from it, he walks towards it, calm, focussed ice-cold. James is a top EOD operative.
Explosive…
Ordnance…
Disposal…
You’d call him a bomb disposal expert. Or crazy. A guy with a death wish. He’s heard it all before and he doesn’t give a shit. He’s the best.
They say he doesn’t have blood in his veins, he has ice. They say he has no nerves.
All that’s about to be tested.
Amira is recruited by the CIA to infiltrate a terrorist cell living in rural Pennsylvania. She’s the perfect plant, no one would ever suspect her. Because her brother was killed when a bomb was dropped on the Syrian hospital where he was working as a doctor. And now hate burns deeply inside her. She’s perfect.
That’s what they tell James when he’s told to train her to be the best damn bomb-maker there is. In a secret camp, deep in the woods, James teaches her everything he knows about building bombs. He’s not a praying man, but now he’s really hoping that he’s doing the right thing.
Codename: Hansel and Gretel
Review
4 ‘what the hell did I just read?’ stars!
Wow, this book. It gobsmacked me. Exiting, suspenseful, surprising, emotional, and horrifying, I still don’t really know how to process all that I just read. But what an engaging read! More of a military suspense with a side romantic storyline than a straight-out romance, Jane Harvey-Berrick has given us something very different with this thought-provoking, gutwrenching read.
James Spears is a member of the British Army working in bomb disposal, and his controlled, calm and focussed nature makes him one of the best. But when he is recruited into an undercover super-secret mission in the US, it will put James to the test like never before. He has only a few months to train two people to go undercover as bomb-makers into a suspected terrorist cell. It seems like an impossible task, and there is so much riding on him doing his job and doing it well.
Amira is the civilian on the team. Her family escaped war-torn Syria when she was just an infant, and while her family have made a life in the US, her brother returned to his homeland as part of Doctors Without Borders, and lost his life in a US air strike. She is raging, grief-stricken, and filled with hate and she has the burning passion and intensity to do what is necessary to make sure her brother didn’t die in vain.
So for two weeks in a secluded forest, James trains Amira and her undercover partner how to stay alive, while he himself is kept in the dark about most of it and hoping like hell he’s doing the right thing. And in the middle of all of that intensity, neither of them ever expected to develop feelings for each other.
That’s just the beginning of the story and I’m not going to say any more because it’s a thrilling rollercoaster ride of emotions and intensity, with the story twisting all over the place so that you never know what’s coming, and though it’s not easy reading, it’s utterly compelling and I struggled to put it down.
It’s an interesting subject matter that JHB has chosen to write about, and though I know a little bit about the very real politics and the atrocities that the characters are dealing with, I admit that I’m ignorant of a lot of the details, which made it all the more horrifying. The same with the religious themes – Amira is Muslim and, combined with the subject matter, it will probably put some people on edge, but I thought that it was handled respectfully, and I found the cultural and religious aspects really interesting and meaningful to both the characters and the story.
And OMG, the feels! The book is written in the dual POVs of James and Amira, and their individual journeys are so beautifully written. We get right to the heart of these two characters, and watching them go through all that they do is quite the harrowing ride.
And then that ending… I wasn’t expecting it. I also wasn’t expecting this to be a ‘to be continued’, which just about ripped out what was left of my heart. It’s not a horrible cliffy, but the story is definitely unfinished, and though it will probably wreck me, I can’t wait to get my hands on the rest of this story!
Not my usual kind of read, but it still wow’ed me! 4 stars.
An Advanced Review Copy was generously provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.
EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) series
Excerpt
James
A woman. Jesus.
Smith had omitted that tiny detail when he’d recruited me to train his undercover agents. It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. It bothered the hell out of me that he was going to send a woman to infiltrate a terror cell run by some of the most dangerous and ruthless people on the planet.
The woman matched my gaze, her fathomless black eyes giving nothing away. She was dressed head to toe in black, with her face, neck, shoulders and chest covered, so it was hard to tell anything about her, but I would have guessed that she was about 5’7”, between 25 and 40, slender.
She shifted slightly and the robe revealed her shoes—red and white Converse. They seemed a contradiction, but what did I know?
Fuck all, as it turned out.
She edged past me, heading for the bathroom and hurriedly locking the door behind her.
I strode from the cabin, my anger building as I tracked Smith across the compound.
“Hey! HEY!”
He was talking to another guy dressed in civvies, a man with over-developed muscles and a fuck you expression. I ignored him, my attention on the tosser who’d brought me on this mission without sharing the full story.
“Smith, are you kidding me? A woman?”
He raised one eyebrow and folded his arms calmly.
“That’s Amira. She’s perfect.” But then he let out a sigh that sounded like weariness and a long-standing argument. “She’s smart, real smart. She’s committed.”
“You can’t seriously send her against ISIS? Do you know what they’ll do to her if they even suspect that she’s U.S. military or…”
“She’s not.”
“What?”
“She’s not military. She’s a civilian. A nurse, in fact. Works the ER.”
I shook my head in disbelief.
“She’s a nurse? Are you insane? She won’t last a day with those bastards! She’s not trained for this!”
He stared at me calmly as I ranted on.
“She’ll never make it! I’ve worked with spies and they need to be streetwise, they need to know how to work with the criminals who’ll get them the supplies needed. There’s no way she’s prepared for anything like that!”
Smith stared me down.
“Take your ego out of the equation, soldier, and listen good. We need someone with above average intelligence so lessons can be quickly assimilated, and with excellent recollection skills both for training and recalling the conversations of the terror cell. Amira is strong in all these areas. We’ve been working with her for a couple of months now.”
“A couple of months? That’s it? It’s nowhere near enough,” I objected.
“And that’s what we’re here for. As well as your special duties, you and your other student, Clay, will teach her the basics: how to clean and fire a weapon, how to use a knife, hand-to-hand combat. Clay has a black belt in jujitsu. He’ll watch her six.”
I started to speak, but Smith and the goon were staring at something or someone behind me. I turned to see the woman standing at the cabin’s entrance, her arms crossed in front of her.
“Thanks for your concern, soldier,” she said, “but I don’t need it and I don’t want it. Just do your job … and I’ll do mine.”
About the Author
Writing is my passion and my obsession. I write every day and I love it. My head is full of stories and characters. I’ll never keep up with all my ideas!
I live in a small village by the ocean and walk my little dog, Pip, every day. It’s on those beachside walks that I have all my best ideas.
Writing has become a way of life – and one that I love to share.
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