Forged In Fire Review

Title:  Forged In Fire
Series:  Red-Hot SEALS #1
Author:  Trish McCallan
Publisher:  Trish McCallan
Released:  Dec. 6, 2011

Buy Link:  Amazon


My Rating:  4 Psychic ♥'s




Synopsis:
Beth Brown doesn’t believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight’s departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she’d watched die the night before. 

Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates’ corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm. 

As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel’s deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate.

Review:
Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters and his SEAL Team 7 buddies, Cosky & Rawls, are ninety minutes away from boarding a flight to Hawaii when Zane has a vision of their bloody deaths aboard the aircraft at the hands of hijackers.  Zane comes from a long line of men with psychic abilities, but he only gets flashes of the future, not normally enough details to abort tragedy from occurring.  As he scans the airport for signs of trouble, his eyes zero in on those of Beth Brown triggering an instant attraction that sears him to the soul, even as warning bells start ringing in his head emphasizing the inconvenient arrival of his soul-mate (Mine!).  Beth is at the airport because of a horrible nightmare she can't disregard, and she is looking straight into the eyes of one of the men whose death she dreamed.  But why is he looking at her like that?  Unlike Zane, Beth knows every gory detail of the hijacking including where the guns are hidden on-board and what the hijackers look like.  She has no choice but to tell Zane and his buddies what she knows and hope they believe her.  What ensues is an action-packed story in which all hell breaks loose and lives are forever changed.

Forged In Fire is a great start to the series as the action is intense and fast paced.  The hunt is on for the mastermind behind the thwarted hijacking, as well as the FBI "insider/s" manipulated into participating.  Families are torn apart as women and children are kidnapped and used as leverage against some powerful people - incentive for their continued cooperation.  McCallan's attention to detail adds to the suspense as every scene is delivered in an authentic, believable manner, especially the storming of the house where the kidnappers/hijackers are holding their hostages.  You can almost hear the gunshots ringing out, smell the blood, and see the gory horror as it unfolds.

In the midst of the suspense, the "romance" between Zane & Beth plays out as he works to convince her that they are "meant to be".  Zane has a one track mind when it comes to Beth - quite simply she is his.  Beth, who caught her ex-fiance cheating, is not so quick to accept their connection as anything more than lust.  I would have liked to see more relationship development, but with a timeline of only 24 hours, the author does a good job of convincing readers that the romance is believable and inevitable.

Forged In Fire is an on the edge of your seat, action-packed suspense story.  I actually think it could have worked just as well without the paranormal aspect (instant soul-mate), but the author did a good job of incorporating it into the story line in an "almost realistic" manner.  While readers don't get answers to every plot line in this book, they do get a satisfying ending and the promise of some exciting reading in coming books.  A Must Read for fans of Romance/Suspense!

My Rating:  4 Psychic ♥'s . . . And that's the truth!

Cross My Heart . . . xxx

Sandra