TARGET ENGAGED (Delta Force #1) by M.L. Buchman-Review, Sampler Tour & Giveaway

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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date December 1, 2015

Kyle Reeves was trained by his father to do one thing: be the very best. So he isn’t daunted by the Delta Force selection process—the toughest military training on earth—or when the very best woman falls into his arms.

Carla Anderson buried her heart in Arlington when she lost her mother and brother to combat. She wants nothing more than to give her all in the line of duty until she too is laid down beside them, and Delta training might just be the challenge she’s looking for. Little did she know, the true challenge was coming in the shape of a sexy, alpha-male military operative.

Surviving brutal training is just the beginning of the merciless path to Delta, but it’s also the dawn of the hottest passion Kyle and Carla have ever known…

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REVIEW: TARGET ENGAGED is the first installment in M. L. Buchman’s contemporary, adult DELTA FORCE military, romantic suspense series-a spin off from The Night Stalkers/ Firehawks series. This is sergeants Kyle Reeves, and Carla Anderson’s storyline. TARGET ENGAGED can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Some of the previous series characters cross over in secondary roles.

Told from several third person perspectives TARGET ENGAGED follows a number of intersecting paths: the building relationship between Kyle, and Carla-the first and only woman to serve with the Delta Forces; the training and acceptance in to the military’s exclusive Delta Force program; and the take down of a drug lord in the Venezuelan cartel.

We are witness to the Delta Force training program-the hardships, tests, endurance and psychological exams that weed out the weak leaving the best of the best. Enter Kyle Reeves and Carla Anderson, along with their team including Richie, Duane and Chad. Five members of an elite Delta Forces team that go where no one else is able to go. The large ensemble cast of characters adds color, turmoil, and the possibility of several more future stories. Carla and Kyle’s personalities and characteristics are compatible, well drawn out, and thoroughly entertaining.

M.L. Buchman’s TARGET ENGAGED focuses on the South American drug cartels, and Delta Force’s take down of the people at the top. Buchman’s DELTA FORCE series is written with military precision, romance, suspense and heart stopping action focusing on the camaraderie, friendship and organized refinement of the Delta Force Team and the missions they are ordered to undertake. Once again, Buchman’s use of military jargon, lingo and technical information brings the reader into the pages, onto the front lines of the dangerous missions, and into the minds of the Delta Force members.

Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley

Reviewed by Sandy

This December starts off with a bang as M.L. Buchman releases TARGET ENGAGED, the first in his brand new (and action-packed) Delta Force series! To celebrate his new release, Sourcebooks Casablanca is sharing the first six chapters of Target Engaged for FREE! Click HERE to download the first six chapters and check out a special note from M.L. Buchman below.

A Note from M.L. Buchman

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my newest series: the first women of Delta Force. I can’t begin to tell you how much fun this was to write. Most of us know little more about Delta Force than the Chuck Norris movies (which leave a lot to be desired) or perhaps we only know the name. In researching my Night Stalkers series, I kept running into these guys. They are the elite of Special Operations Forces. They are at a level of SEAL Team 6, and most would argue they were even beyond that. They are the ghost and shadow warriors who helped take down drug lord Pablo Escobar, capture Noriega, were undoubtedly behind the locating of Saddam Hussein, and are the main reason that Al-Qaeda abruptly stopped being a topic in the Iraq War when over three thousand of their leaders were swept off the board. Yet the Pentagon states that they don’t exist. Fascinating.

And while they often work with undercover female operatives, no woman has yet managed to kick in the front door on one of the most arduous selection programs in the military. I decided to change that. Carla Anderson stepped forward to take the challenge. She is a not a woman out to prove she can match any man, she’s out to prove that she can beat them at their own game. And that was the first thing that I loved about writing this series.

In the Night Stalkers, the women were strong, excellent, and determined. To be a Delta Force woman, Carla had to add enough attitude and drive to plow through all obstacles which just made her so much fun. Nothing was off the table when it came to her attitude or her actions. And that was the second thing I came to love about this series launcher, Target Engaged. Being Delta Force, they really do operate outside so many bounds. They are sent to do the tasks that no one else can. To that I added the additional challenge that Robert Ludlum gave to Jason Bourne (though I’m quoting the movie): “I don’t send you to kill. I send you to be invisible. I send you because you don’t exist.” I’m pretty convinced that this is part of Delta’s mission.

It is occasionally said by retired Delta Force operators (as the on-duty ones never speak): “If we’d been sent in to take down bin Laden, you still wouldn’t know how it was done.” To bring that to life gave me a permission as a writer to run my characters into hard and strange places and be just a little gonzo doing it. But writing is a give and take, and I can’t begin to tell you how much the characters I created shaped my telling of this story. I like to think that they had as much fun as I did bringing this story to life.

I hope that you enjoy the reading even half as much as I enjoyed the writing!

M.L. Buchman (the Oregon Coast, November 2015)

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