Where did you get the book: Edelweiss e-arc
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: Out now
They are the Ghost Ops: a covert squad of super-elite soldiers. After their team was betrayed and massacred, the three surviving members went underground and built Haven, a community of misfits and geniuses. Now they’re at a crossroads, facing a new threat capable of destroying everything they hold dear.
In the second book of Lisa Marie Rice’s thrilling Ghost Ops series, the Haven team is faced with a new addition to their secret society-and a threat capable of destroying everything they hold dear.
When Nick Ross disappears from Elle Thomason’s life, she is certain she’ll never see the man she loves again—except in her dreams.
Ten years later, as a respected researcher breaking new ground in psychic phenomena, she sends a desperate call for Nick’s help. One by one, her colleagues have started disappearing . . . and Elle knows she’s next. An elite soldier, Nick never meant to hurt Elle, duty kept him away—and then she vanished. Now troubled by unusually vivid, disturbing dreams of Elle in danger, Nick will rescue the only woman he’s ever wanted and bring her back with him to Haven. Though powerful men are after Elle and her special abilities, Nick will die before leaving her side again.
*Blurb taken from Goodreads*
I have to say I think I DREAM OF DANGER is one of the most unusual and craziest books I’ve read this year (and I mean that in a good way) because it encompasses so many different elements that I wasn’t sure if it was a romantic suspense, PNR or even a post apocalyptic romance. The way it changes tones and sub-genres is a tad manic. However, it certainly engaged me from the get-go–even though I wasn’t keen on the first book of the series. But I love Lisa Marie Rice and her writing, and she does some crackalicious romances. While I liked the premise of the series which focuses on a hidden group of outcasts who have made a secret community in an old mine, the paranormal aspects didn’t draw me in as much. I also felt the first book’s romance was weak and didn’t stand out as much as her previous books.
However, I DREAM OF DANGER avoided the factors which I didn’t like in the first book and it was way more entertaining. I didn’t think the elements would work because the change of tone was so crazy and manic but it really added to the pace and enjoyment factor. I also felt the romance concentrated very strongly with the hero and heroine in the beginning of the book. In a lot of ways, the beginning of the book is one long prologue that sets up and establishes the romance between Nick and Elle. It felt like the first half of a book with the second half focusing on the main plot with the suspense and the ongoing plot arcs which features secret experiments on soldiers and people with psychic abilities. This is why the tone felt so frenetic because it started off as a sweet romance with Nick being fostered into Elle’s family, but he soon leaves when he starts to develop feelings for her. Meanwhile, Elle has to face her father’s descent into Alzheimer’s and ends up nursing him and foregoing college. But when he dies, Nick briefly returns for his funeral, and both Elle and Nick admit their feelings for each other. Their happiness is short-lived when he has to leave for a mission but he leaves a note which Elle misses. She assumes Nick has abandoned her again, and decides to embark on a fresh start and forget about her feelings for him. Ten years later, Elle is working with a corporation that examines psychic abilities, and Nick, who has been framed along with his Ghost Op team-mates, is now dealing with the aftermath from the events in the first book. Nick and his team need to ensure that their hidden community in Haven is kept safe from the clutches of Charles Lee who is determined to track them down.
In the second half of the book, Elle is a neuroscientist after gaining her degree with her new start in life. She is also experimenting on her own ability along with other scientists and volunteers who have a similar gene that reacts to a drug that Lee is refining its properties. Elle has the ability to dreamwalk or remote view places or people, which comes in very useful. But when her research team is attacked and abducted she manages to psychically call out for help to Nick when she is faced with the same danger. Nick is frantic with worry because she is the lost love of his life and she disappeared without a trace and he is determined to win her back. Along with the help of his team and Catherine who has empathic abilities they track Elle down.
This was so reminiscent of old school LMR that I totally inhaled it one sitting. It has a overprotective alpha hero and a smart heroine who ends up in trouble. Although in the second half of the book the romance takes a back-seat because the suspense and action plot takes centre-stage. Nonetheless, I loved Nick’s going ape-shit in trying to find Elle and rescuing her and I was glad that their romance was established before the events took over. But the action scenes when they are reunited was tense and well written and really added to the crazy pace of the book. It really does feel and show that Lisa Marie Rice was having fun in writing this book.
Nonetheless, I did find the change of tone a bit confusing from Bourne-like soldiers in a futuristic suspense setting which then morphed into this comic book overtones with Lee’s cold ambitions leading him to experiment upon himself. While I disliked his POV in the first book because I found his scenes uninteresting and boring, I have to say his ultimate fate in his experiments made my jaw literally drop. The ending of the book was so unexpected and a huge twist that I did not see coming. I am still reeling with that ending because it sets up a post apocalyptic setting with a viral outbreak and 28 DAYS type scenario with people being infected and making them go crazy.
There is also a romantic subplot which features the rescued commander, (from the first book), Lucien Ward, and scarred ex-actress and Haven inhabitant, Stella. It was so brief a scene that I felt it was a disservice not to expand more in their romance because I really like them pairing up. I hope there will be more focus on them and maybe a full book or a novella because I really like the idea of them being together. I also felt that with the frenetic change of tone and sub-genre it was disjointed and it was almost like whiplash in terms when it switches from PNR suspense to post apocalyptic setting at the end. But for me it did work because of the crackalicious elements. You won’t be bored reading this book; it was action packed and tense and filled with surprises and twists. I was thoroughly entertained and even amused by it.I loved every crazy moment especially the ending!
I am really looking forward to the next book in the series just to see how this will pan out. But I won’t have any expectations because I suspect it will be just as unexpected and nutty.
I give I Dream Of Danger a B-
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