Honor Reclaimed by Tonya Burrows: Former Marine sniper Seth Harlan is new to HORNET and anxious to prove he can still do his job despite an ongoing battle with PTSD. He remembers all too well what it’s like to sit inside an enemy camp, praying for rescue and waiting for death, so when a wounded veteran contacts HORNET to rescue a buddy that got left behind, all sorts of nasty memories strain his … strain his newfound stability.
An interview with a runaway Afghani child bride leads photojournalist Phoebe Leighton to an arms deal involving a suitcase bomb powerful enough to wipe out a mid-sized town, and she realizes this is one battle she can’t win on her own. Forming an unlikely alliance with a ragtag team of military and government delinquents, she meets Seth, a sniper carrying as many emotional scars as physical, who impresses her with his steely will and ignites passions within her she thought long dead.
Suddenly this mission is about a lot more than an abandoned soldier. Racing against the clock, Seth, Phoebe, and the rest of HORNET struggle to stop that bomb before it reaches its final destination: The United States.
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Fantastic story that kept me hooked from beginning to end. Seth, a former Marine, made a brief appearance in the first book, SEAL of Honor, as a potential member of the team. They were skeptical because of his severe PTSD, something that seemed to be confirmed during several training missions. I ached for him and what he had been through, as revealed by his flashbacks. Seth was determined to overcome his issues and make a place for himself with HORNET, in spite of his occasional doubts. When the team was asked to rescue a black ops agent in Afghanistan, Seth knew it was his chance to prove himself. However, returning to Afghanistan could also strain his stability, bringing back memories of his capture and torture.
Phoebe was a photojournalist working on a story about child brides in Afghanistan. Several years earlier she was a tabloid reporter who trashed a Marine’s name and reputation to improve her ratings and name recognition. When she realized the damage she had done, she quit what she was doing, changed her name, and focused on stories that brought attention to injustices around the world. She had no idea that her current project would collide with that same man’s mission.
I loved the development of the relationship between Seth and Phoebe. Once they got past the misunderstandings around their initial encounter, it was clear that the chemistry between them was intense. I ached for them both, because Seth believed that he was too broken to be good for any woman, and Phoebe was hiding the truth about who she was. As Phoebe worked with the HORNET team to match her information with theirs, she saw the emotional turmoil that Seth went through every day and was blown away by his honor and his strength. After being trapped in his memories and nightmares for so long, Seth was shocked by the resurgence of feelings and desires that she brought out in him. Her empathy and compassion also had a way of calming him and cutting through the mental noise that still plagued him. The growing feelings and intense chemistry leaped off the page, as did Phoebe’s worry about what would happen when Seth found out the truth. All I could do was hope that they would be able to come through it, and so they did. I loved the realism of how they did it, instead of the often “I love you so of course, I’ll forgive anything immediately” resolution of so many others.
The action of the story had me in its grip from the first page. The horror of what Tehani would be forced to do if it hadn’t been for Zak breaking his cover was bone chilling. His acceptance of his probable death or torture was heartbreaking. When the HORNET team was called in to rescue him, my heart hurt for Seth, who knew what Zak experienced if he was still alive. Then there were Phoebe and Zina, who ended up with a far bigger challenge than they expected when they were called on to get Tehani to safety at Zina’s shelter in Kabul. When Seth and Jean-Luc’s meeting with a weapons supplier went south at the same time Phoebe appeared to be following them, the tension was incredible. When Seth and Phoebe made it to the shelter, and Tehani was finally able to fulfill her promise to Zak, the intensity went up even more. I loved seeing the team work together to set up the rescue, though I was with Phoebe in her disgust of the way they treated Seth. I just about stood up and cheered to see Seth take matters into his own hands, and the events he precipitated had me on the edge of my seat until it was all over. I ached for him and his fear for Phoebe. It was interesting to see who came to his aid and how. But Zak’s rescue turned out to be only the tip of the iceberg, with something much worse waiting in the wings. That issue was far too believable, and the realism had me glued to the pages to see how it would be resolved. The three women were caught in the middle of it, with a psychopathic killer just waiting for his chance. I was completely stunned by the unexpected twist in the resolution.
As the second book in the series, the HORNET team is slowly coming together. They are more of a team than they were in the first book, but there are still adjustments going on. It bugged me that they were all so down on Seth. Most of them are prior military and should have been empathetic to what he had gone through. Instead, they constantly put him down, at least at the beginning. Ian was the absolute worst, and I really wanted someone to knock some sense into him. I did like getting a little more background on each of the others, and can’t wait to read their stories. I would also like to know more about the money man, Tucker Quentin. In reading this book, I also learned about the Wilde brothers and their books, so those have also been added to my “want to read” list.