Annika Martin wrote a book called The Wake Up Call, which I think I read in 2022 but didn’t review. I followed her to this series, because these are all on KU, and back in Jan, in the Personal Spending Freeze post-Christmas, that was my major requirement.
These are good, sexy fun. Not at ALL what I expected, based on the other book by this novelist! This is about Melinda, taken hostage at her own instigation during a bank robbery. She’s a risk taker, forced by circumstances into sitting on her hands, working the boring job, and taking care of her sisters.
These are also foursome novels (tagged as Why Choose in most places), so if that doesn’t float your boat, stay away. Finally, a trigger warning for stockholm syndrome – Melinda, rechristened Isis to fit in with the mythological names of her men (Thor, Odin, and Zeus), was technically kidnapped before falling for the gang.
There’s a larger mythology happening in these books that I found really entertaining – a well detailed criminal LA underbelly, as well as a evil government agency tailing the guys, complete with obsessed beyond reason Agent Nemesis.
It’s a long journey from Book One, with Isis insisting that she’s going to be part of the gang come hell or high water, to Book Six, where the four of them triumph over adversity and live happily ever after (I mean, spoiler, I guess?). But I devoured all six in a week.
We start out with two books that are essentially just “Isis would like to be a bank robber, please” and “a lot of sex, thank you.” Book three onwards start to be a bit more plot heavy, which is probably the only way I could have stuck with all six. Also makes Book Two feel all the more like filler, since AM cleary CAN do plot when so inclined. Small throwaway pieces of dialogue from early books come back to pay off later, which is also loads of fun.
Along the way:
-The Gang decides to call themselves The God Pack, which I will not do. I understand if this is a deal breaker for you.
-Isis gets a stalker, who she pegs as a creep within ten pages, and then has to wait for the boys to catch up by the end of the book.
-Isis’s sister gets framed for murder, and they have to go back to her home town to save her
-Agent Nemesis both tries to destroy them, and urgently requires the assistance of The Gang
-Despite being on the run from the government and Agent Nemesis, they somehow all go to Italy for a hot minute
-There are many, many filler (ie, non-sexy) pages devoted to the interpersonal relationship dynamics of a foursome
Now that I look back over this, I think there might actually be more reasons to NOT read this one? But for some reason, in that last week off before going back to work (my notes are dated 2nd Jan – 5th Jan), they hit the spot. Clearly “some reason” is “I was still working off my NYE hangover.”