Thursday, December 1, 2016

King of Hearts by Irish Winters - Review and Excerpt












Author: Irish Winters
Publication Date:  24 November, 2016
Publisher: Windy Days Press
Series:  Deuces Wild, book 1
Genre: Contemporary Romantic Suspense, bit of Paranormal 
Age Recommendation: 
Rating: 4 Stars

~ I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review ~ 



Book Description:

Tucker Chase. FBI agent and tough-as-they-come ex-Navy SEAL, Tucker’s take-all-comers attitude attracts trouble on the job and off, but he still gets the hard jobs done. He makes no bones about being the baddest ass on the planet—until his ex-wife runs off to Vietnam with his only son. Until the woman he won’t admit to loving leaves on some humanitarian mission to who knows where.

Until he has to ask for help…

Melissa McCormack. Widow to one of America’s finest USMC war heroes, Melissa is everything Tucker isn’t. Sophisticated. Wealthy. Respected. Don’t forget celibate since Brady, the first love of her life, passed away. She wants Tucker as much as he wants her, but not if she ends up like that elite rifle he totes, the one he could field strip in his sleep without thought or care.

The one he takes for granted…






My Review:

This is one of those books that you have to sit on for a little bit before you can truly decide how you feel about it.  I believe some of that comes from it being a new series from an author whose series prior to this I have throughly loved.  It comes from the fact that this book is a constant rush, it is always moving, full of action twists and turns.  It's the first book in the series so it's also top loaded with the information needed to set the entire series in motion.

I struggled at first with Tucker's self-deprecation.  He in the first several chapters of the book mentally puts himself down constantly and it began to turn me off.  He's this strong male with Alpha tendencies but he can't think about himself with out feeling as though he is a complete loser and unworthy of his son or his love interest.  What I realized after sitting on it a day or two is that this is Tucker's downfall, this is what makes him the tragic hero but the hero none the less.  He needs this Achilles heel so that can grow and become the true hero...the person that his son and love interest need, the person to set the stage for all the heroes to come through the series.

Melissa may be a damsel in distress but she's not weak heroine.  She's been through more in her young lifetime than most.  She's looking to discover who she is after the death of her husband, that loss creates a fire inside her to save others.  She gives her whole heart to everything she does and she wants to give it to Tucker Chase but he can't seem to give his back so she has to separate herself from him.  I loved that about her, she's the heroine that I am always craving, the one that stands up and says "No, I won't put up with your foolishness.  When you figure out what you're missing then maybe come find me." Of course finding Melissa becomes darn near impossible when she takes her pain and heads into the jungles of Vietnam to work with Doctors for Charity.

I loved that we get more of Alex and I am more than a bit curious to see how the small paranormal aspect will continue to tie into the series.  I also loved the humanitarian aspects that Ms. Winters threads through the book.  She touches on child labor, sex trafficking, guerrilla warfare, corrupt governments...so many points to make you really look outside of the box that is our own country and consider that we (the majority of her readers) are from 'First World Countries', that we will never experience the horrors but that doesn't mean we should be ignorant of them.  I love it when a book does more than give you a good story, but makes you really think and look into ways that you can better the world.


~ HAPPY READING ~






Excerpt

Tucker stared at his fellow agent, his mind caught between two hellish firestorms and two impossible decisions. His eleven-year-old son on one side, the woman he loved on the other. And there it was, the eternal dilemma of every hard man with an impossible job to do, whether as a SEAL, an FBI agent, a police officer, or a fireman. Do I stay or do I go? Who do I save? The men who would die for me, or the family sitting safely back home waiting for me, counting on me? Which mission was more important—keeping the home fire burning or putting out the flames of war on the eastern front? Rescuing Melissa or rescuing his only child? For the first time in his life, he honestly couldn’t decide. 






Irish Winters is an award-winning author who dabbles in poetry, grandchildren, and rarely (as in extremely rarely) the kitchen. More prone to be outdoors than in, she grew up the quintessential tomboy in rural Wisconsin, spent her teenage years in the Pacific Northwest, but calls the Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah home. For now. The wife of one handsome husband and mother of three perfect sons, Irish divides her time between writing at home, and traveling the country with her man while – writing. (Seriously, what else? She believes in making every day count for something, and follows the wise admonition of her mother to, “Look out the window and see something!”






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