Show No Mercy

Journalist -vs- spec op soldier bad boy. An actual plot involving a previous death, bombings, kidnappings, & brotherhood in special forces. Jenna & Gabe's story is give & take with her doing all the giving trying to break through the tough exterior Gabe holds up. Another romance between one of the other team members is also introduced. Some of it was a little farfetched but it is a romance.

Gabe has some serious demons haunting him, and for good reason. So when Jenna shows up in the one place he'd never want to see her... well my friends, the heat is on! It's Cindy Gerard at her usual fabulous level of writing. One thing I definitely love is that she has a good handle on balancing romance with the story. It's not just a love story- it's got plenty of action and adventure. Fast paced, interesting characters, good balance between sex and action, and characters I fell in love with and rooted for. Cindy knows how to write an alpha-male hero that makes me weak in the knees- Gabe is no exception. The book went to the places I expected- and then surprised me as well. This is the first book in the black ops series, and having read #2 and #3 I can tell you it's a series worth getting into if you have interest in this style of book. note: Gabe and Jenna have history... that can be found in Cindy's 'bodyguard' series book #6. Just FYI. I didn't know about this when I read show no mercy so it's not a must read beforehand, just sharing since I wish I'd known!

This book features two characters dealing with various emotional scars, who are forced to team up to combat not only external forces, but also their own inner demons. Jenna is a hotshot, globe-trotting reporter who is struggling to come to terms with an event that left her questioning, on very fundamental levels, who is she and if she'll ever be able to reclaim her sense of self. Gabriel is a man scarred both physically and emotionally. A true alpha male in every sense of the term, he is take charge and intensely focused and skilled in matters of combat. He is also dealing with a profound loss, and extreme guilt and anger that have left him closed off emotionally. While less capable authors would take the aforementioned factors and use them to create a novel that is little more than unrelieved melancholy and characters who are (voluntarily or otherwise) self-centered, Gerard allows her characters to be very real, in terms of being simultaneously flawed and honorable, grief-stricken and truly funny and snarky. As Jenna and Gabe grow closer (whether they like it or not), their romance does not in any way take away from the action and danger, and the almost palpable suspense, and the reverse holds true, as well. What the reader is left with, then, is a novel that is equal parts action and romance, which is a rarity this day and age, as all too often authors allow one aspect or the other to languish undeveloped or virtually ignored while the other receives most of the attention. Fortunately, Cindy Gerard has proven that she is adept at handling everything from explosions and gunfights, to passionate love scenes and intensely emotional conversations. This is a very well-written book that is a truly great kickoff to what promises to be a fantastic new series.

MERCY ME! - Make way on your keeper shelves for the next great romantic adventure series, Black Ops, Inc. by Cindy Gerard coming October 2008 for Pocket Star Books starting with Book #1, SHOW NO MERCY which is sheer reading pleasure from first page to last! In Buenos Aires, Argentina, Gabriel Jones and a team from Black Ops, Inc. have been hired to protect unpopular American business mogul Emilio Maxim, on his visit to the National Congress building. However, they're really watching Maxim for his connection to Rashman Hudin, who is a primary suspect in an international plot to wreak havoc between Western democracies and Jihadists and tied into their former MC6 op of destroying a Nazi mind control compound in Argentina. BOI is a special team of former Special Ops military men, who are now all mercenaries working privately with a lot less regulations than when they were on Uncle Sam's payroll. Gabriel is waiting on the street for Maxim disguised as a drunken peasant in a dirty poncho and scuffed boots which conceals his weapon of choice, a lethal Butterfly blade that he never leaves home without. However, instead of Maxim, Gabe is shocked to see the beautiful, redheaded, mouthy American journalist, Jenna McMillan he thought he said good-bye to for good after the MC6 mission 9 months ago. Jenna is again on assignment in Argentina for Newsday to interview, Maxim and to prove to herself she has the guts to go back into a dangerous situation for a story and because there's a certain mercenary she can't seem to forget. When Maxim finally arrives the mission is a total disaster! There's not only a car that arrives with a masked gunman firing an AK-47 but another car that drives right up onto the sidewalk obviously triggered with a bomb! Gabe makes a flying leap to tackle Jenna and saves her life but when he wakes up with a wounded leg, she is far from grateful. Gabe and Jenna's adversarial relationship takes right back up where they left off but it soon becomes apparent that their feelings for each other and who exactly needs protection isn't always clear. SHOW NO MERCY shows that Cindy Gerard knows how to craft phenomenal romantic suspense! She shows this through her absolutely fantastic hotter-than-life characters. She shows this through their fabulous verbal repartee. She shows this through her thrillingly dangerous plots. She shows this through her heart-in-your-throat passionate love stories. And finally Ms. Gerard shows us why she's a New York Times bestselling author!

I loved Show No Mercy. Gerard just gets better with each book she writes. The characters in SNM had such great depth and Gerard really gave them excellent back stories to reveal their personalities and reasons for why they are who they are. Gabe was your great alpha, don't-want-to-love-again hero. But, he was so much more than just your typical alpha hero and wasn't just a cliche. Jenna was a tough, yet vulnerable, very likeable heroine and the two had great chemistry together. What I especially liked was the balance of romance to suspense. It seems more and more romantic suspense books are leaning more to the suspense story and the romance is more of an afterthought or just a sub-plot. Some seem to think if there is the prerequisite sex scene or two that constitutes a romance. Not so, in my mind. Gerard knows how to write great romance and her suspense stories are taut and nail-biting. I can't wait to read the next in the series. The excerpt at the end of SNM was really a teaser - it didn't even reveal who the hero is in the story! But, it will surely be great whoever gets to be featured, as she laid out the groundwork for the next books well and she presented the characters well so that the reader will want to read more about them.

Gabriel Jones was a member of a secretive special ops unit that only the President and a few others knew existed until his commanding officer, Captain Nathan Louis Black retired and started his own special ops unit- Black Ops, Inc. Gabe rescued journalist Jenna McMillan in Argentina when she was kidnapped while working on a story. Jenna has never been the same. Her abduction, then the kiss she shared with Gabe after her rescue, changed her. Nine months later, Jenna is still licking her wounds on her family's ranch when she decides to take her life back. She's sent to Argentina again to write a story on rich and possibly shady entrepreneur, Emilio Maxim. Jenna isn't in Argentina long when Gabe saves her life again. Thrown into a battle they weren't expecting, Gabe, Jenna, and the rest of the B.O.I team are trying to figure out what's going on while attempting to stay one step ahead of the bad guys. Jenna is falling hard for Gabe but Gabe's built a seemingly impenetrable wall around his heart. While they fight to stop a madman, Jenna fights to win the heart of the man she's fallen in love with. Show No Mercy has it all: a scarred hero, a courageous heroine, and enough thrills and chills to fill every page. The things Gabe has seen and done have left him a tortured soul. It takes him a long angst-filled time to see that Jenna can heal him. Gabe's brooding, no-nonsense attitude and his intense good looks make him irresistible. Jenna is one tough chick. She wears her heart on her sleeve and had me cheering for her the whole time. Adrenaline pumping action, heartbreaking drama, a psychotic villain with his graphic tortures, and sizzling passion, fill the pages of Show No Mercy. It's fantastic! I can't wait to see what kind of trouble the rest of the men of Black Ops, Inc. get into! Nannette reviewed for Joyfully Reviewed