Alicia Thomas’s review of Unleashing the Storm (ACRO Series, Book 2) by Sydney Croft
Contemporary paranormal romance released by Delta 26 Feb 08
This book is the second in a series about a secret agency called ACRO. You can read my review of the first book, Riding the Storm, here. Since the first book was one of my top reads last year I had to read the second one.
Kira Donovan is a tough woman. She’s had to be. She’s pretty balanced considering her life, though. Besides being able to talk to animals an having some animal traits (like the heat season every year) she’s a pretty normal woman.
Tom Knight, known as Ender, is an assassin and a loner. He is supposed to bring Kira in to ACRO. The enemy wants to use her as a bridge between animals and humans to create biological weapons. So, Ender has to keep her out of enemy hands. He has to bring her in or he has to kill her.
In spite of the hero having orders to possibly kill the heroine, this book is lighter than Riding the Storm. This is partly due to the theme being communicating with animals rather than awe inducing weather. It is also partly due to the heroine being so sweet and innocent. Not sexually, of course, and yeah, I said she’s tough but she’s straight forward and basically just good.
But I said light-er, not light. The nature of ACRO means there will be darkness in the corners. The secondary characters and secondary story lines are all pretty dark and intense.
Very sexy with good characters and a fast moving plot but lacking some of the intensity of the first book.
Grade: B
From the back cover:
Feel the heat. Hear the roar. The fever has begun.
There’s a storm rising. Electricity crackles in the air. For Kira Donovan, it’s that time of year again: when the need floods her flesh, when almost any man-the bigger and the stronger the better-will do. For Kira, an animal psychic, the heat is a matter of life and death, and this year it has come at just the right time. Tom Knight, a natural born predator, has arrived at her isolated Idaho farm-for reasons all his own…
At first Kira isn’t interested in Knight’s motives. She only needs him-his body, his hands, his scent. But soon, through a daze of desire and distrust, Kira discovers Knight’s world-the world of a covert operative, one man among dozens of secret agents waging an astonishing global war. Knight’s mission is to bring Kira–kicking and screaming if necessary–into the Agency for Covert Rare Operatives and harness her extraordinary gift. He never expected the powerful emotions she would ignite in him, or the fierce desire to keep her safe from harm. For as darkness gathers around them, Kira is feeling the heat once again, leading them both on a wild ride of delicious thrills…and terror beyond imagining.
Read an excerpt.
Read Alicia’s review and Gwen’s review of Book 1, Riding the Storm.
Other books in this series:
I don’t know why my brain does this. Does anyone else have characters they just can’t see as they are described? I know Dev has a physical description but, even back in the first book, I started seeing him as Morpheus from The Matrix and he’s stuck that way. He is just so cool and solid… like carved from steel.