Monday, May 24, 2010

Karin Harlow's Enemy Lover


Enemy LoverWOW! Look out Jean Claude & Anita and you, too, Cat & Bones! Jax and Marcus are steaming up the pages and kicking ass along the way! It’s been a long time since I’ve had a book draw me in after the first page and keep me flying through the pages until the very end! Karin Harlow’s Enemy Lover was full of fast-paced action along with stomach-fluttering emotions. The characters were so vivid that as soon as you met them you either loved them or rooted for their demise. The L.O.S.T. series is going to quickly become a genre favorite.  A must read for any fan of Paranormal Romance and Urban Fantasy! Enemy Lover is the first book in the series and I simply can’t wait to see where Harlow takes L.O.S.T.!
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When her team failed to protect her from rape and torture by the hands of the human trafficking pimp Montes, Angela Giacomelli, was lucky to be alive. When the same justice system she fought for took her attacker away as an untouchable, she took justice into her own hands. As a result, her boss sold her out and left her to fend for herself on the witness stand. Angela, the once top-notch, kick-ass, take no names, cop is found guilty of murder. The bastard deserved it, but she is now going to spend the rest of her life in prison.
After being whisked off the bus that was delivering her to her new life in prison, she is given a second chance at life with the L.O.S.T. (Last Option Special Team). Angela Giacomelli is gone and Jax Cassidy is born. The L.O.S.T. hones her skills and makes her a lethal member of the team. Jax’s assignment, one she must succeed in to prove herself, is to gain the trust of assassin Marcus Cross and destroy him. Once Marcus is out of the way, she must take down his boss, Colonel Joseph Lazarus, leader of “The Solution”, an organization that preaches patriotism, but practices terrorism in the name of national security. Lazarus’s goal isn’t so much national security, but clearing the path to the top, right to the White House.  It’s a tough assignment but neither Jax, nor her team, know just how dangerous the assignment is. Marcus is no regular assassin. He’s a vampire and Lazarus is his creator.
  Marcus is no stranger to being alone and fending for himself. He was abandoned by his mother as a baby, his father died by the time he was 6, and his grandfather raised him on the reservation. As a troubled kid he was in and out of jail as a teen and after graduating high school with a barely passable GPA, he joined the Army at age 17. Within a year he had moved quickly through the military scoring perfectly on nearly every ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) and spent 10 years as a Specialty Sniper in the Ranger program.
8 years ago Marcus Cross was a Special Ops Sniper, fighting for his country. When he is left for dead in the desert hills of Afghanistan, deserted by his unit, Marcus is given a second chance at life, eternal life. With the blood of two of the most powerful vampires in existence running through is body, Marcus is a practically invincible. With Colonel Lazarus as his mentor, Marcus is able to continue to fight for his country, not as a military soldier, but a soldier for The Solution. He’s a skilled assassin, taking out the bad guys; the bad guys that no one else can touch, not even the military.
When the Senator, who has been supporting The Solution, pulls the funding because of the extreme measures that Lazarus has been taking, Lazarus threatens him and his family. The Senator calls in the L.O.S.T. to protect his family and Lazarus calls on Marcus Cross. Marcus’ assignment: kill the Senator’s daughter and anyone who gets in his way. Not being one to kill innocent people, Marcus tries to reason with his mentor. Lazarus makes it clear that though the daughter is not a threat, her father is and, well, sometimes you have to sacrifice an innocent for the greater good.
When Marcus and Jax become each other’s “assignments”, they find it to be not quite as easy as they thought. There is an attraction between them that shocks both of them.  Both have been betrayed in some of the worst ways and trust is not an easy thing for either of them, especially since they are both on opposing teams.  Jax and Marcus find something in each other they never thought to find again. Jax finds the passion that she thought would never return and Marcus finds the one thing that makes him miss his mortality and makes him want to live as normal a life as he can. 
Marcus finds out that Lazarus has been using him and the betrayal is blood deep. He must work with Jax to take down his mentor and save not only the senator’s life, but Jax’s as well, even if it costs him his immortal life in the end.