Shadow Unit Series
Book #4 - Dying Soldier Payhip
Meet Sergeant Connor Finley and Sergeant Shawn Weller - elite covert ops soldiers with Shadow Unit - a joint UK/US anti-terrorism task force.
Connor and Shawn's harrowing missions take them across the globe from London to Kuala Lumpur to India to Pakistan to Bangladesh and Sierra Leone. Fighting to stem the flow of ever-increasing terror attacks and to protect innocent civilian lives, they battle arms dealers, drug smugglers, biological weapon threats, and a madman hell-bent on revenge, facing death at every turn. Their private lives are fraught with struggles as well, both Connor and Shawn battling personal demons from their past that threaten their future.
Amidst a backdrop of guns, bloodshed and violence, Connor and Shawn's love and dedication for one another never wavers, standing resolutely side by side, drawing strength from each other to continue their never-ending fight.
August 29 - MM Good Book Reviews
September 5 - Drops Of Ink, Amy's MM Romance Reviews, Mirrigold: Mutterings & Musings, Book Review By Virginia Lee, We Three Queens
Series Review
6 simple words... get it, read it, love it.
6 simple words... get it, read it, love it.
The Shadow Unit series needs to be in every reader's collection, both in eBook and print format. 'nough said.
I will be reviewing each story individually.
Blurb
Sergeant Connor Finley and Sergeant Shawn Weller are dedicated soldiers working covert ops for Shadow Unit -- a joint UK/US anti-terrorism task force.
Partners in the field and out, they had been through hell together for the last four years and made it through standing side by side. But when their latest undercover op to bring down an arms dealer plunges them into a world of drugs, sex and violence, Shawn must literally get in bed with the enemy in order to complete the mission. And Connor is forced to watch, helpless, as his partner is broken into pieces.
Will love be enough to put them both back together or will this be their final mission?
I don’t really know how
to describe Broken Soldier. Incredible just isn’t a strong enough word, same as
any other descriptive words I can think of.
Through brilliant writing
Jamie pulls you into the story in such an insidious way you don’t know it’s
happening until a certain event (no spoilers!) hits you upside the head when you
least expect it.
Shawn and Connor (A.K.A. Finn), are realistically portrayed as dedicated soldiers, part of a joint UK/US
anti-terrorism task force.
The drug use. The violence.
The unwanted sex. The broken soldier. All of these combine to make Broken Soldier
a riveting story. You might even learn a few things. I did.
5 out of 5 stars.
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Blurb
Shadow Unit may have overturned the illegal arms cartel in Kuala Lumpur, but the harrowing undercover op left emotional scars on Sergeants Shawn Weller and Connor Finley. Slowly, patiently, they piece their partnership back together, closer now than ever before.
Until a new mission threatens to tear them apart.
When Connor accidentally kills a civilian, he questions his job, his abilities, his worth. A timely offer of promotion seems his only way out, even though it means transferring out of Shadow Unit and away from Shawn.
The arrival of Julian Montgomery, Shawn's former CIA handler and lover, further strains their relationship. Julian knows all of Shawn's secrets as well as the past Shawn has kept hidden from Connor. Now the self-serving Julian wants Shawn back--with the CIA and with him. No one will get in his way. Including Connor.
When the joint Shadow Unit/CIA mission to stop the supplier of a deadly biological weapon goes sideways, Connor is captured, tortured, and used as a human test subject. It's a race against time to save his life. But who can Shawn trust?
And who has gone rogue?
With Rogue Soldier, Jamie Lynn Miller raises the bar. Once again we are drawn into the lives of Sergeants Connor Finley and Shawn Weller, dedicated soldiers belonging to the elite joint UK/US anti-terrorism task force.
In this installment, the boys face a myriad of challenges. There are some very emotional scenes that will bring a tear to your eyes as Shawn and Connor deal with ghosts from their pasts triggered by events of the present, even events that make you so mad you want to throw or punch something.
Definitely an emotional roller-coaster.
Shawn and Connor are written beautifully, as is the rest of the supporting cast. Their interactions and reactions to various situations is quite believable.
Without you realizing it, Shawn and Connor become even more real as does their love for each other and their dedication to each other, no matter what life throws at them, good, bad or horrifying.
One thing, to me, stood out. I found it very interesting to see how Shadow Unit deals with downtime
Again, 5 out of 5 stars!
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Blurb
The hunters become the hunted when the past returns to haunt Sergeants Connor Finley and Shawn Weller with deadly vengeance. In the wake of the harrowing missions in India and Pakistan, Connor struggles to come to terms with causing the accidental death of a child, while Shawn tries to put Julian's betrayal behind him.
Adding to the emotional fallout, new trials arise - the appearance of a young man from Connor's past turned stalker may have fatal consequences for him, while Shawn must confront his former heroin addiction and break free of the hold it still has on him.
The challenges continue when a Shadow Unit undercover op in Bangladesh to shut down the pipeline of terrorists being smuggled into the UK draws Shawn and Connor into a web of lies and deceit from a man hell bent on exacting revenge on the two soldiers - demanding a life for a life. Will Connor and Shawn survive? Or will the jungle become their final resting place?
Wow. Just...wow. The bar can't be raised any higher.
Intense isn't a strong enough word to describe the action in this, the third installment of the Shadow Unit series.
The beginning of Hunted Soldier starts out a little slow, but it's necessary to set the MULTIPLE directions the story takes.
With more twists and turns than a bag of curly fries, events are set in motion, the results of which you won't see coming, which is a true testament to the brilliant writings of Jamie, including making the characters real to the reader. If Shawn and Connor aren't real to you by now, they will be after reading Hunted Soldier.
You will be taken on an emotional roller-coaster the likes of which I've never before encountered in all my years of reading and reviewing M/M stories.
Again, 5 out of 5 stars, and if I could rate it higher, I would.
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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!”
Okay, so much for raising the bar. Jamie Lynn Miller has destroyed it with Dying Soldier.
I had the honor and privilege of being a beta-reader for Dying Soldier (as well as Hunted 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).
I had the honor and privilege of being a beta-reader for Dying Soldier (as well as Hunted 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 met the two main characters, Sergeants Connor Finley, a former SAS operative, and Shawn Weller, a former Navy SEAL and CIA operative in Broken Solder (Shadow Unit book 1)., along with 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 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?
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 UK/US (and occasionally other organizations like the CIA) anti-terrorism task force, based in London.
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 gave 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 Detroit-born Shawn (with 'his patented middle-finger reply' and mission to see how many times he can say the word, or any form of the word, fuck in one day) and London-born Connor (A.K.A. Finn) are so well developed you can't help but get emotionally invested in them.
Jamie 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 an emotional roller coaster the likes of which I've never seen, filled with angst, tenderness, camaraderie, and a team of soldiers (designated Shadow Team),which consists of Finn (designation Shadow One), Shawn (designated Shadow Two), Mandy (designated Shadow Three) , and Chloe (designated 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 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 eBook Reader AND on everybody's bookshelf in print form. Trust me, I have them all in eBook and print.
Do I need to say it? Five out of five stars! Well done, Jamie. 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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Blurb
With memories of the past coloring their present, Sergeants Connor Finley and Shawn Weller use an unexpected 24 hours together in an isolated cabin on Christmas to help one another make peace with their ghosts and look toward the future together.
(Set between Broken Soldier and Rogue Soldier but can be read as a standalone)
5 out of 5 stars (running out of different ways to say it).
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How to Love Christmas Again is a charming little story included with Dying Soldier.
Shawn and Connor relive cherished Christmas memories as their connection grows even stronger.
Have a box of tissues handy when you read this one.
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Jamie Lynn Miller has been writing fiction since childhood and decided to take the plunge and go pro in 2008, finding to her amazement that people truly enjoyed her love stories. She’s a romantic at heart, and her tales reflect the desire we all have to find “the one,” persevering through trials and heartache for that happy ending.Jamie has a degree in fine arts and has spent the last twenty years working as a graphic designer, though she’d much rather be writing. She was born in Chicago and still lives there today with her husband and their two furry, four-footed children, er… cats.
If she’s not brainstorming story ideas, you can find Jamie 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
Blog: http://www.jamielynnm.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jamielynn.miller.3
Twitter: @JamieLynnAuthor
Amazon Author Page: http://tinyurl.com/k3go6f2
All content copyright © Jamie Lynn Miller, all rights reserved
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