Blurb
Serving with the elite anti-terrorism task
force known as Shadow Unit, Sergeants Connor Finley and Shawn Weller have faced
arms dealers, drug lords, terrorists, rogue CIA agents and biological weapons.
But with the unconditional support of their team, and more importantly, their
love for one another, they possess the strength to survive any challenge.
But how do you fight an enemy you can’t
see? When a mission in Sierra Leone takes an unexpected turn, Connor and Shawn
find themselves under quarantine and in isolation, their lives hanging in the
balance between life and death. This time, their team is on the outside,
looking in. Have Connor and Shawn finally found themselves in a battle they
cannot win?
Excerpt
The firefight was fierce, bullets slamming
into the crates, the tightly packed drugs inside the only thing preventing
Shawn and Connor from being torn to pieces. Planks of wood shredded under the
onslaught, sending shards flying, cutting into Shawn’s face and he turned away,
looking toward the right. He spied Chloe, Mandy and Sebastian just as pinned
down as he and Connor, but still keeping their enemies at bay with deadly
accurate shots.
Shawn turned back and leaned out sideways
from behind the crate, snapping off several rounds. They found their target,
the man’s head nearly exploding as he dropped to the ground. Shawn did a quick
count and saw at least eight hostiles still standing outside, plus the three
shooting from the windows and two from the doorway, all of them using
AK-47’s—the terrorist weapon of choice.
Multiple sustained bursts of gunfire
further off to Shawn’s right signaled the arrival of Bravo Team joining the
fight. Connor’s rifle angrily spat out rounds next to him, nearly deafening
Shawn. Another quick look around the crate showed Shawn that several of the
terrorists were being driven back closer to the building under Bravo Team’s
advance.
“They’re falling back!” Shawn shouted to
Connor.
His partner nodded and popped up over the
top of his crate, eagerly looking for another target. Connor squeezed the
trigger rapidly as an answering burst of gunfire sounded in return. Shawn watched in horror as Connor’s body
suddenly jerked multiple times, a splash of blood arching through the air as
his partner was knocked off his feet, landing backwards in a heap, eyes closed,
not moving.
“No!
Finn!”
Buy link for all Jamie Lynn Miller’s books, all in one place
Author bio
I have a degree in fine arts and have
spent the last twenty years working as a graphic designer, though I’d much
rather be writing. I was born in Chicago and still live there today with my
husband and our furry, four-footed children, er… cats.
If I’m not brainstorming story ideas, you
can find me at a sci-fi convention, in front of a furnace doing glass blowing,
or on a mat twisted into a yoga pose.
CONTACT INFO:
Email: jamielynnmiller@live.com
Twitter: @JamieLynnAuthor
Amazon Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/k3go6f2
All content copyright © Jamie Lynn Miller,
all rights reserved
I had the honor and privilege of being a beta-reader for Dying Soldier, and I have to say that Dying Soldier is the best in the Shadow Unit series, which consists of Broken Soldier (book 1), Rogue Soldier (book 2), Hunted Soldier (book 3) and now Dying Soldier (book 4).
Through several email exchanges I found out that, although Jamie Lynn has written and published many stories, the Shadow Unit books is her first attempt at writing a series, and she's done an outstanding job.
We first meet the two main characters, Sergeants Connor Finley, a former SAS operative, and Shawn Weller, a former Navy SEAL and CIA operative. We also meet a superb supporting cast of Sergeants Mandy Cho, a brilliant computer analyst/hacker from British Military Intelligence, Sergeant Chloe Davis, a former Army counter-intelligence agent. and Lieutenant Colonel David MacDonald, their commanding officer. Others are introduced throughout the series.
Each book builds upon people and events from previous books. Jamie Lynn provides enough information on characters and events from previous books so that the books are tied together like a TV miniseries. Hmm, not a bad idea, right Jamie Lynn?
She has a tendency to put the boys through hell, which is not all that hard to believe since Shadow unit is THE ELITE unit in a joint US-British (and occasionally other organizations like the CIA) anti-terrorism task force.
Dying Soldier is no exception. Shawn and Finn are top-notch soldiers used to being on the battlefield, breaking up one terrorist cell after another. But, what happens when they face an enemy that they can't fight? One that can take them out of the equation once and for all?
After working together for four years, they finally give into their feelings for each other and decide to become a couple, which happens approximately five months prior to the beginning of Broken Soldier.
The characters of Shawn (with 'his patented middle-finger reply' and a mission to see how many times he can say the word, or any form of the word, fuck in one day) and Finn are so well developed you can't help but get emotionally invested in them.
Jamie Lynn plays on this as if she were a concert violinist playing a concerto on a Stradivarius. I'm going to be totally honest here. There were a few moments in the previous books that kinda tugged at the old heart strings, but at one point reading Dying Soldier I had to put the book down. I found myself crying so hard I couldn't read the words, which is extremely rare for me. I've never developed such an emotional attachment to a character like I did with Shawn.
Dying Soldier is a bit of an emotional roller coaster filled with angst, tenderness, camaraderie, and a team of soldiers (designated Shadow Team), Finn (designation Shadow One), Shawn (designation Shadow Two), Mandy (designation Shadow Three) and.Chloe (designation Shadow Four) who would readily lay down their lives for their teammates.
If Shadow Team were real, I'd be honored to be a part of it. Perhaps I could be designated Shadow Five.
Seriously though, there is a section of Dying Soldier that involved a hospital scene and medical procedures. Jamie Lynn doesn't allude to a situation such as 'he went into the hospital, had the operation and went home two days later. Not a very interesting way to describe what could become a major plot point. Instead, she takes us right into the hospital and takes us through whatever procedure is being done with a great deal of accuracy, and there is a MAJOR scene in Dying Soldier. She makes you feel like you're right there as a family member would be.
I cannot recommend Dying Soldier, indeed the entire Shadow Unit series, highly enough. It's a must have on everyone's eReader AND on everybody's bookshelf in print form. Trust me, I have them all in eBook and print (except for Dying Soldier, which will be added as soon as it's released in paperback).
Five out of five stars! Well done, Jamie Lynn, very well done.
Have you started writing Shadow Unit book 5 yet? I'm sure it's a question that everyone who reads the series will be asking.
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