HEART STRIKE (Delta Force #2) by M.L. Buchman-Review, Book tour & Giveaway
HEART STRIKE
Delta Force #2
by M.L. Buchman
Release Date: August 2, 2016
Genre: adult, contemporary, military, romance
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 2, 2016
Richie Goldman is the team geek of Delta Force, a warrior and a technical wizard-but nothing is more mysterious to him than women. When a feisty new recruit joins the team just in time for a dangerous mission in the Colombian jungle, he’ll have to make it out alive if he ever wants to figure her out.
Melissa Moore is going to be the best woman in Delta Force. Ready to do battle, her biggest challenge is avoiding Richie’s sweet and sexy distractions. She was prepared for combat, but falling in love is an entirely different battlefield
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REVIEW: HEART STRIKE is the second installment in M. L. Buchman’s contemporary, adult DELTA FORCE military, romance series focusing on the men and women of the elite Delta Force squad. This is tech geek Richie ‘Q’ Goldman, and Staff Sargeant Melissa ‘The Cat’ Moore’s story line. HEART STRIKE can be read as a stand alone without any difficulty. Any important information from the previous story is revealed where necessary.
Told from dual third person perspectives (Richie and Melissa) HEART STRIKE focuses on the latest mission for the members of the secret Delta Force group known as The Unit- a dangerous mission into the Colombian jungle to take down one of the largest cocaine processing centers in the country. Melissa is a new grad of The Unit’s rigorous six month training program and the second woman to make the Delta Force team. When her fellow grads are sent on a different assignment Melissa finds herself assigned to The Unit’s number one team-a cohesive group of Delta Force operators already working in the field. What ensues is the building relationship between Melissa Moore, and the Delta Force team’s computer geek Richie Goldman, a potential problem with group cohesion, and the undercover operation to search and destroy.
The world building continues to focus on the illegal drug trade of South America; the elite team of The Delta Force unit; and the camaraderie and friendships that continue to grow within the team. HEART STRIKE is an ensemble story line. All of the team members from book one including Kyle and Carla (Target Engaged) play secondary and supporting roles throughout the story.
M.L. Buchman’s stories are rich in military lingo, technical flight information, and a descriptive picture of the Colombian and South American jungles. HEART STRIKE is a story of suspense, mystery, romance and fiery action wrapped in lush green and striking blue of the land and sea. The premise is intriguing and imaginative; the characters are colorful, dynamic, and passionate; the romance is intimate and seductive-M.L. has upped the sexuality of his stories.
Copy supplied by the publisher through Netgalley
Reviewed by Sandy
The first book in my new Delta Force #1, Target Engaged was called “His best yet” by Booklist and was also named a finalist for RWA’s prestigious RITA award.
Well, my answer to that is Heart Strike, releasing August 3rd, 2016. But it got me thinking. What are my favorite sequels? For a change-up, I focused on the action side rather than the romance, and here’s what I came up with.
5. The Color of Money Paul Newman and a very young Tom Cruise in The Color of Money. The original Jackie Gleason and a very young Paul Newman The Hustler was a master work of a tight psychological drama. They upped the stakes and made it utterly captivating in the highly energetic sequel.
4. Jason Bourne Jason Bourne #2 & #3 didn’t disappoint…for a single second. They sustained the tension, remained true to the character (an essential), and found ways to ratchet the tension higher in each successive one. Number 4? Not so much.
3. The Wrath of Khan The Wrath of Khan notoriously took one of the most disappointing movie launches ever, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and created a massive and incredible franchise that has continued ever since. Khan is still one of the great, over-the-top, out-of-control villains.
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Sometimes a great sequel comes third rather than second. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade pitted Harrison Ford against Sean Connery in gloriously foolish father-son mayhem that completely honored the first film.
1. The Dark Knight Rises This choice surprises me. I like the Dark Knight reboot, but I’m not a big fan of the comic book heroes in general and frequently skip them. It took me a couple of years to catch up with this one and what I love about it isn’t the acting (which was wonderful), or the action (which was dramatic). It was the story. The writer and director completely set us up to thinking this story was going one direction…then in the last half hour it went another way entirely. AND that twist was perfectly in character, just wholly unexpected.
Now, I write romantic suspense, so the ending is fairly predictable, but I certainly hope that you enjoy the journey of my latest Delta Force novel, number 2, Heart Strike!
Sunrise was less than an hour off when Chad jostled his shoulder. Richie hadn’t been asleep and barely managed to suppress an oath as Chad shook him hard enough to wake the dead-his idea of humor. Richie noticed that he was a little more cautious with Duane who often woke with his knife half-drawn. Kyle and Carla were already at the hut’s entrance. Kyle had taken one look at the order and, in minutes, outlined a plan of how they were going to exit the farm with hopefully minimal exposure and risk. The guards they were anticipating would be off duty and the patrol timing would be wrong, but Kyle’s plan was as solid as they could get with what they knew. No way would Richie be missing this place. Dirt floor, woven grass mat, and a thatched roof that could really use some thatch before the next rainstorm but wasn’t going to get it. He felt sorry for the laborers. Some of the farmers were about to have an even worse season than the last one. At a big site like this, they were little better than slaves. Once the coca was gone, they’d be free, but with no assets and no working farm crop. In the coca business, locals just weren’t part of the profit equation. Rolando and the drug lord’s other armed guards Richie liked well enough, but had less sympathy for. The Delta team slipped out into the darkness, just a hint of the blue in the sky that was already washing out the fainter stars. They passed the farmers’ huts and were almost to the road leading out of the camp. “Where are you going, amigos?” Rolando, his AK-47 no longer over his shoulder but now in his hands. “Hey, buddy.” Chad started forward, but stopped and tried to look stupid when Rolando flicked off the safety. Carla stepped forward with an easy sway of her hips. Her dirty blue work shirt unbuttoned far enough to reveal that her assets weren’t all that much less impressive than the fabled Mayra’s. Rolando’s eyes dropped to her cleavage. She moved a hand up to his chest. With a little flick of her wrist, she revealed the long KA-BAR military knife she was holding and rammed it up under his chin and into his brain. Rolando twitched once. “That’s for trying to ram it up my backside without asking.” “He what?” Kyle snarled, but Carla didn’t waste any time answering. If there was ever a woman able to defend herself, Richie knew it was Carla Anderson. Then Rolando collapsed to the ground and his finger must have snagged on the trigger. A single 7.62mm round gave a loud crack and zinged off into the trees. “Shit!” the whole team said pretty much in unison. With their clandestine departure blown, Chad swept up the AK-47 and fired a security round into Rolando’s forehead. In seconds, they were fifty meters away and moving fast. Kyle had Rolando’s sidearm and Carla had a subcompact Glock 27 that she’d produced from somewhere-where was one of the questions Richie suspected he’d be better off not asking. Still, it was an interesting problem because they’d all been checked on arrival as being unarmed. Richie had pre-buried his GPS and satellite gear in the jungle, carefully crossing then recrossing the mined perimeter before they’d come into the camp so that he could retrieve them once the team had been accepted. The two guards at the main gate were half-awake when they stumbled to their feet. They went back down fast and Richie and Duane now had AK-47s as well. Chad stripped them of a pair of Makarov handguns, tossing one to Richie that he caught midair. There was an old Jeep parked by the gate, but neither of the guards had a key. It was probably back in the open, on Rolando’s body. Chad started hot-wiring it while the rest of them stood watch. Then Richie heard it. Distant at first, but building fast. The four-engine gut-thumping roar of a loaded 747. “Come on, Chad,” Carla pleaded. “Get us out of here.” The Jeep’s engine roared to life and they piled in. Duane tossed his AK-47 to Chad and dove into the driver’s seat-he was the best driver they had. He’d been working up the sprint-car circuit toward NASCAR when he’d taken his detour into the military. Kyle and Richie dropped two more armed guards who came rushing from the huts, half-dressed and scared awake. Duane raced the Jeep out of camp along the road, praying for no booby traps. Then the largest tanker plane in the world descended and began its run. The 747, converted for firefighting, had been put into deep storage in the Tucson desert when its owners went out of business. The CIA had found another use for the massive plane, which now began its dump of twenty thousand gallons-over eighty tons-of defoliant across the exact coordinates that Richie had sent to them just six hours ago. His Delta team had been to twelve coca farms in the last six months. And the 747 tanker had visited each in turn. Twelve farms that wouldn’t produce a single leaf of coca anytime soon. “Down,” Chad shouted. They all ducked and hung on as Duane rammed the heavy wooden outer barrier at thirty miles an hour. It blew apart. A four-by-four shattered the windshield and Carla knocked the remains of the glass clear with the butt of a Chinese QBB machine gun she’d acquired somewhere along the way before turning it around to shoot a guard who’d been standing well clear of the gate. Richie kept an eye out to the rear, but no one was following. If they were, they’d have a long way to go. The team had been pulled out of Bolivia. They were being tasked to a new assignment. That was fine. After six months training together and another six in the field, it was the last line of the message that had worried them all. Proceed to Maracaibo, Venezuela. Acquire new team member.
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M. L. Buchman has over 25 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year” and Booklist “Top 10 of the Year.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.
In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.
He is now making his living full-time as a writer, living on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing at www.mlbuchman.com.
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