Saturday, 31 August 2013

✪ Fatal Strike ✪ Shannon McKenna ✪ Review ✪





© Bianca  



SHANNON McKENNA
FATAL STRIKE
  •  McCloud's & Friends #10
  • 400 Pages
  • release date -  24 September - 2013


★★★★★
5 Stars


 


When Lara Kirk was abducted months ago, Miles Davenport vowed he'd bring her home. But the mission failed. Miles has become totally obsessed; he can practically hear Lara pleading for him to save her. Finding her after all this time will be next to impossible...
Lara Kirk lives in a shadowy world where reality and fantasy are one. Her captors have poisoned her body with concoctions that enhance psychic abilities--and they seem to be working. To escape, Lara has formed a deep attachment with a man whose virile, sensual presence in her mind is her only comfort. She's not even sure if he's real--until the six-foot-five-inch powerhouse bursts in to rescue her...
Once freed, Lara has no choice but to trust Miles with her life as they run from enemies too twisted to imagine. But they're also fighting a dangerous attraction that could kill--or save--them both. 
Either way, it's going to be a hell of a ride...

Click here to see the McCloud's Series on goodreads



My Opinion:


Like all books in the series - I loved it!


 We already know and love Miles from the earlier books in the series and we heard about Lara in the previous book One Wrong Move.

We start Fatal Strike a few months after Miles' brain was horribly tortured in One Wrong Move. He's physically ok now - but his mind is slowly driving him insane. The bad guy almost fried his brain - he can now see and hear better and every touch hurts - even the computer wi-fi waves hurt him. (and he's a computer geek!!)
One good thing - the only good thing - about this whole mess is that he has dreams. Very erotic dreams about Lara Kirk - the girl he was trying to save but couldn't. He believes she's dead.

But she's not - she's still being held captive by Thaddeus Greaves - he is using her as a guinea pig - he wants to perfect the psi-max drug that Lara's mother created. The drug that was responsible for killing both her parents. Well - the drug did not kill them, of course - bad guys did.

After thinking for weeks that Lara is just a dream - that it's just his mind finally going insane - Miles finally starts to believe that she might be real - that she could still be out there somewhere.

With the help from an old lady he finds a clue to where she could be held.
And with the help of the McCould clan he tries to save her.

Only Greaves has so much psychic power that he almost ends up killing the McClouds - because they don't have any mental shields to keep him out of their heads.

Of course we end up escaping - with Lara. But Greaves doesn't stop looking - he wants Lara for himself - and he keeps hurting and killing innocent people on his way to find her.


 But ..... that's all I'm telling you ☺
I don't want to spoil your reading pleasure ☺



____________________________________________________________

I REALLY LOVED THE BOOK!!!


I loved all the McCloud's books - they were all really erotic and exciting reads.


Fatal Strike was just as good as the other 9 books in the series.

I had always hoped that Miles would one day get his own story - and ta-daaaa - here it is ☺

Now the only one without his own book is cop and McCloud friend Sam Petrie - I hope he and Sveti will be next ☺

The only thing that I didn't like is the PSYCHIC stuff in the book - and the last books in the series as well. I hate everything super and paranormal. And this is just sooo far out of my believing-range, that I almost stopped reading a few books ago. BUT  - I loved the McClouds and you can't just stop reading a series where you love every single one of the extended family ☺

The book would have been sooo perfect without the psychic elements - don't know what the Thriller part would have been about then, though - but that's the author's job - to think about interesting things.☺  Just no psychic stuff anymore please!

But even with the psychic element - I still loved it.

Miles is sooo grown up all of a sudden - the mind-raping-torture session in the last book, somehow turned him into a real alpha - hero - manly - man ☺


And Lara is such a nice heroine - she's not getting on my nerves at all! Normally the girls in books are really annoying :) well sometimes at least. Lara is really nice - and she loves Miles right from the start - before she even met him.

They can't depend on the McClouds too much - because without any mental shields they would all be in too much danger - so the 2 of them have to save themselves. Which is really exciting and adorable to watch/read.


But don't worry - we still see enough of the McCloud clan!!

Another tiny little thing I didn't like - there were too many UH's and AH's and UHM's in the book. If it was only one person doing the stuttering uh-ing - it would be ok - but it's all of them!
BUT - the rest of the language I really like - it's not such a stiff and formal english like in other books. It's just like normal people would talk in real life.

I ENJOYED THE BOOK A LOT
 - and I'm sure you will too - if you loved the first 9 books in the series - you will SOOO LOVE this one too! It was worth the long wait - we FINALLY have a book about Miles ☺ YAYYYY


Will there be a happy end??? 
Yes of course! But the way to that HEA will be dangerous and exciting!



Now hurry up Ms McKenna - we need Sam's story!!! ASAP!




LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR


ABOUT SHANNON:
STOLEN FROM HER HOMEPAGE



HOW IT ALL BEGAN
I started writing my first romance novel in secret. I was working a temp job in an insurance office in Manhattan at the time, and the office manager had made it clear that even if there was nothing to do, I still had to look busy-- never one of my big talents. I felt bad about the wasted time, though, and I needed something to round out my other chosen career, which was singing. Yeah, that's right. Most artists choose a more practical Plan B to back up their improbable Plan A. Me? No way. "Long Shot" is my middle name.
So I sneakily set up a Document 1 and a Document 2 with a spreadsheet on it. If my Boss du Jour walked by I could quick-like-a-bunny switch screens, and whenever the coast was clear, I went back to my story. Not that I was slacking, mind you. If there was work to be done, I did it. The sneakiness felt familiar, though, because I've been teased about reading romances since I was a kid. I think the day I finally grew up was the day I stopped trying to cover up what I was reading on the bus, train or subway. Let people think whatever they like.
It wasn't until I moved to Italy (details of that Long Shot provided later on) that I got serious about writing, though. I found myself with many long, quiet days alone with nothing to do, so I slogged my way bravely to the end of the manuscript and sent it out. Everybody rejected it-except for Kensington. I wrote for them for a few years, and then made a bid for an erotic novella for the new Brava imprint, and oh joy, they accepted it. Then I wrote BEHIND CLOSED DOORS. And so on, and so forth.
That's how I started. I can't think of anything I'd rather do. I never knew it would be so scary, and so hard . . . all that solitude and silence, a blank computer screen, and no one to blame. But still. It's worth it. It's great.


MY OTHER LIFE
I was originally convinced that I wanted to make it as a singer in NYC, so I was temping to support my music habit. I sang with various ensembles that performed medieval and renaissance music, I sang lead in a fabulous Celtic fusion band, I sang church gigs, I sang weddings and funerals, smoky cabaret and country/blues, Christmas carols dressed in a Dickens outfit in shopping malls, I was even a strolling madrigal singer at the Renaissance Faire in one of those cleavage-enhancing lace-up bodice thingies. I did everything I could possibly think of to make the rent. Those were my wild years. Then, Italy…which is a lot mellower than NYC. And oh. The food. Words fail me.


ROMANTIC ASIDE
A brief word about the Renaissance Faire. I never did a goofier, more ridiculous or worse-paying gig, but I have to say, the place was a sizzling hotbed of summer romance. Such a variety of gorgeous men in tights to choose from, and I've always loved historical romances. Yum.
Then one day, I saw a group of Italian musicians strolling by. They were all handsome, as Italians are wont to be, but the lute player was just delicious. His legs in tights surpassed all other legs, and those long, tanned fingers twinkled so deftly over the lute strings, it just made me quiver. His name was Nicola, and he didn't speak a word of English, but I was undaunted. I followed him around, dreaming up excuses to talk to him, insofar as I could. Then I saw him at the cast campfire that night, whipping up a delicious pasta dish over two tiny camp stoves for more than fifty people with such grace and flair, my knees sagged beneath me. What could be sexier than a man who can cook? After we devoured his bounty off paper plates, he played Bach for us on his classical guitar, naked to the waist in the flickering firelight, green eyes flashing. Hold me back. (No one did.)
The ultimate summer romance ensued, but he went back to Italy when the summer was over. I resigned myself to a bittersweet memory of What Might Have Been, but I couldn't stop thinking about him. A year later, I quit my job, broke my lease, put my stuff in a friend's basement, bought a ticket to Italy, and went to find him. Yeah, it was nuts…but we've been together for two decades now. Really. Passion makes you reckless. Must've been the effect of all those romance novels.

Improbable though it may seem, it worked out fine. Now I live in Southern Italy, of all things, and oh, if I ever thought I needed a challenge or an adventure, this is certainly that. Someday I'll write a book about it. It'll be a sharp-edged comedy. But when it comes to love, Nicola will always be my inspiration