Heart of Danger

Ghost Ops #1

by Lisa Marie Rice

Ghost Ops--a small unit of super-elite soldiers so secret only two men know of their existence. Ostensibly betrayed by their commanding officer while on an anti-terrorist mission, the team is massacred. Only three survive, and find themselves framed and disgraced. But en route to the court martial, they escape . . . and disappear.
Beautiful, brilliant and determined, Dr. Catherine Young is on a mission to find a man who has vanished into thin air. Walking into a high-tech hideaway bearing a critical message for "Mac" McEnroe, team leader of the betrayed Ghost Ops force, is the most dangerous thing she has ever done. The soldier she encounters is frightening and suspicious, but her senses reveal the man underneath: Tough, honorable, and so breathtakingly masculine Catherine feels weak in his presence. Catherine has a gift that enables her to see into the heart of others—and looking into Mac's is like staring into the very heart of danger itself.

Genres: Romance, Romantic Suspense, Paranormal, Military Fiction, Suspense, Contemporary, Paranormal Romance

295 pages, Paperback

First published October 26, 2012

About the author

Lisa Marie Rice is eternally 30 years old and will never age. She is tall and willowy and beautiful. Men drop at her feet like ripe pears. She has won every major book prize in the world. She is a black belt with advanced degrees in archaeology, nuclear physics, and Tibetan literature. She is a concert pianist. Did I mention her Nobel Prize? Of course, Lisa Marie Rice is a virtual woman and exists only at the keyboard when writing erotic romance. She disappears when the monitor winks off.

Reviews

[UniquelyMoi ~ BlithelyBookish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heart of Danger is a fast paced, action packed, very sexy story told in true Lisa Marie Rice fashion. This book just oozes with sexual tension and burn up the bed sheets lovin’, but it’s also filled with emotion. Heartbreaking, disturbing, violent… sweet, tender, romantic, Ms. Rice took me on a roller coaster ride of feelings and kept me reading ‘til the wee hours of the morning, unable to stop until the very end.

They are Ghosts. They do not exist. Their birth certificates have been destroyed, all traces of their civilian and military pasts wiped out. They have no official military rank and wear no uniforms or insignia, save a tiny steel pin of a striking hawk forged from the rifle that killed Osama Bin Laden.

Ghost Ops. A small team of super elite soldiers so secret only two men know of their existence-General Clancy Flynn and their commanding officer, Colonel Lucius Ward. On a mission to destroy a US-based lab working on weaponized bubonic plague, the team is betrayed by their commanding officer. The Team is massacred and only three men survive to be court martialed: the Team Leader, Tom 'Mac' McEnroe, tech genius John Ryan, and lethal Nick Ross. They disappear en route to prison and are never heard of again.

Mac and his men hole up in a high tech lair, completely off the grid. But when a beautiful woman somehow finds him, he doesn't know whether to kiss her, or kill her.

Dr. Catherine Young is on a mission, propelled by forces beyond her control to find a man who has disappeared off the face of the earth. She is bearing a deadly message from a dying man. Catherine has a gift that allows her to see into the heart of others. But looking into Mac McEnroe's heart is like looking into the heart of danger itself.

I couldn’t help but become totally caught up in the Ghost Ops world and the people who live there, but I have to be honest, this isn’t a terribly unique plot. Fans of romantic suspense will probably be able to name more than a couple of similar plots they’ve read by other authors, but the way Ms. Rice tells it gives a fresh voice to the story line. It’s a very compelling world… exciting, intense, mysterious…and it takes place in the not too distant future. Technology is advanced beyond what we know today, but not to the point of being science fictionish.

Tom ‘Mac’ McEnroe is one of those heroes who’s been through hell and lived to tell about it. His scars run deep, both physically and mentally, but he’s a leader who will not let his men down. Being betrayed by his commanding officer, a man he’d come to respect, trust and love, destroyed something deep inside Mac the way nothing else could. But it also made him stronger, more determined to protect those around him, and for me, this made him the perfect hero.

Catherine Young is pretty much a loner. Her gift – or curse, depending on how she looks at it – of being able to get inside people’s heads and read their emotions, has caused her to be alienated from friends and family who think she’s more than a little weird. But weird is the last thing Catherine is. She’s incredibly intelligent, compassionate, and intuitive. She’s brave, honest and has strength of character that, along with her uniqueness makes her an amazing heroine.

Apart, Mac and Catherine are awesome, but together, they are perfect!

The bottom line: With Heart of Danger, Lisa Marie Rice has given us an exciting start to what I believe will be an awesome series. The book isn’t without flaws – more internal dialog than I usually like in my stories and some repetitive mental hashing and rehashing of thoughts and emotions – but overall, it’s a very enjoyable read. I loved the Haven community, the secondary characters and their stories, and am very much looking forward to reading more about them and their lives in the Ghost Ops series!

My thanks to Edelweiss and HarperCollins/Avon Red Publishing for providing me with a copy of this story in exchange for an honest review. The pleasure was mine!

[Alp · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25/5

I was a little hesitant to pick up this one at first. The premise didn’t sound quite appealing to me and I wasn’t sure whether it would be right up my alley. But I was mistaken! It turned out to be a success for me! This book was awesome, and honestly, I enjoyed it way more than I expected. Now I'm glad I eventually decided to give it a go.

I love Lisa Marie Rice’s writing style. I love how relatable it is and how it makes my emotions ebb and flow throughout. This book was a nice blend of romance, suspense, action, and mystery with some paranormal elements thrown in. I enjoyed the plot, the setting, and the pace of this one. And for me, the best part of this book was the characters, especially the heroine, Dr. Catherine Young. I loved how brave, determined, reasonable, and intelligent she was, but most of all, I loved that she had strong moral character. She was never afraid or hesitant to do the right thing even if it meant risking her own life.

And what to say about the hero, Mac…Well, just one word: HOT. Ooh, this man was sinfully hot and he exuded alpha male qualities!

The author writes sex scenes in such a way that the readers may need a cold shower! Mac and Catherine’s sexy times were sizzling scorching hot and there was unmistakable chemistry between them, which is one of the things I want most in my (romance) read. I liked that they felt inexplicably attracted to each other when they first met. The way the attraction between them grew into a deep and strong affection for one another felt so natural to me.

Overall, an enjoyable read. If you’re looking for a good romantic suspense story, Lisa Marie Rice certainly delivers!

[Auntee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love LMR...but this one was far from her best. Although a lot of the tried and true LMR elements are here (foster-child hero falling hopelessly and protectively in love; the obsession with the H/h hands; the sensual love scenes), she also adds some paranormal/futuristic elements, and some confusing, dare I say boring plot line about an ambitious mad scientist bent on producing a drug to create super-soldiers for China. I must confess after losing my train of thought while reading the chapters about the villain's grandiose plans, I decided to skim. And I never skim a LMR read! But if I wanted to finish I had to skim.:(

I did enjoy the scenes between the hero--an unattractive (this point was made over and over again) Black Ops soldier wrongly accused of treason and living on the lam in an off-the-grid community hidden in a mountainside in California, and a beautiful, brainy scientist with a gift of being able to "read" people who is compelled to find him. Of course when they meet, there are major sparks, they hit the sheeets (on day 2, I beleive), and they decide they have to save his commander who is being held and experimented on in the lab where the heroine worked. The scenes describing the community where the hero and his two fellow soldiers (and dozens of other innocent people wrongly accused of things) are living were rather interesting (even if I had to suspend disbelief--how can they afford all this stuff--and how did they build it without being discovered?)

Mac...


The suspense involving the rescue was rather well done--I really had no problems with that...except the villain did not get his comeuppance. I imagine this series is going to be a trilogy--the hero, Mac, has 2 friends who are sure to get stories--and I'll bet the villain will not be stopped until the third story..

The love scenes? Typical LMR steam, but nothing out of the ordinary. If you've read any other LMR books, you know what to expect.

To sum up, I was a bit disappointed. Once I skipped over the boring parts, I was able to get interested in the book, but it never really wowed me. It wasn't bad...it just didn't excite me. Maybe it suffered from first book syndrome and the following books in the series will be much better? Or maybe this whole concept will never work for me? Who knows. But I have faith in LMR. Every now and then an author's allowed to have a dud. And I think this is LMR's. 3 1/2 stars.

[MelissaB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heart of Danger started with a bang and was pretty good for the first half but then the second half tanked for me.

Dr. Catherine Young is a brilliant researcher who is married to her work until her secret psychic gift sends her on a search for Tom "Mac" McEnroe to help her save a man in trouble. Mac finds her and brings her to his secret compound of refugees in the middle of a mountain. He tries to figure out if she is sent by his enemies or if she is what she seems. They quickly fall in love, she makes her place in the secret community and they go on a mission to save a life.

Sigh. So I was hoping this would be the return to the LMR I loved but I haven't seen that since Dangerous Passion. It started out pretty good and exciting, the heroine was taken to the hero's secret compound and there was tension as he was trying to figure out if she was out to get them, as the hero and his friends are on the run from the government. The book is set in the future but even with that I had trouble believing they could built a community home that advanced. Then the book started to go down hill for me when there is sudden insta-love between the hero and heroine, it just came out of nowhere and suddenly they were doing it and thinking of forever - the day after they met. There were the typical LMR tropes of the hero having a blue steeler and being so excited for the super beautiful heroine that he could barely spend the time to undress her let alone do foreplay. The relationship just moved too fast and they went from meeting to true luv forever too quick for me to believe or enjoy.

Another issue I had was the recycling of things from other books - the descriptions of the hero sounded so much like Douglas from Midnight Angel - ugly, knife wound, acne scars, broken nose. The glass scene was a less hot rendition of the scene from Dangerous Passion.

I was kind of freaked out by the thought of people being operated on involuntarily and being giving drugs and treated like guinea pigs, it was creepy. Once again we spent too much time in the villain's head but I guess that is just how LMR is writing these days. I was not a huge fan of the futuristic setting but it was interesting sometimes.

So this book was a mixed bag for me, it had a good beginning then just got rushed along too quick. I will give the next book a shot to see where the series is going.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Sometimes Lisa Marie Rice / Elizabeth Jennings really hits the spot for me. Some of her books are top drawer in the erotic suspense genre. She writes over-the-top blockbusters filled with high-tech gadgetry and the BEST alpha military heroes, oozing with testosterone and tenderness. Pure nonsense, what these characters can do (in bed and on assignment) but so much fun! Here's my breakdown, explained further below in detail.

Romantic Relationship: ★ ★ ★1/2 (instant love, Beauty-Beast, much like all her books)
Plot Development: ★ ★ ★ (intriguing, strong beginning, too much filler in middle half, strong ending)
Writing Style: ★ ★ (Rice is too repetitive. Her characters are like hamsters on a mental wheel, rethinking the same thoughts multiple times, and about nothing profound — mostly they obsess on superficial topics, like physical beauty and ugliness. However, her vocabulary is decent).

Overview: Heart of Danger is the first book in an emerging series called Ghost Ops. It is set about 15 years in the future, in the USA (California). There is nothing paranormal about the hero, but the heroine is fey. Mac and his men are former Navy Seals (Rice goes so far as to claim they are the very same Seal Team Six that killed Osama bin Laden – a bridge too far for this reader). Anyhoo, these Ghost Ops are wrongly accused of various crimes and charged with court martial. Before the book began, the Ghost Ops escaped and are hiding from the Feds off the grid in a secret high-tech “bat cave” called Haven, yet they still use their skills for good in the world.

CHARACTERS:
Tom McEnroe (Mac): Like Jack Prescott in Dangerous Lover -- a favorite of mine – Mac is portrayed as a protector of women and children (but how that character trait developed is a mystery, for neither of them experienced a mother’s love in childhood, and instead were viciously abused -- by men). Like Douglas Kowalski from Midnight Angel – another favorite -- Mac is fairly unattractive from birth, made worse in adulthood after suffering knife cuts and severe burns to the face. Mac is quietly amazed that Catherine could love him – exactly how Kowalski felt about his Allegra.

Catherine Young: Like Lucy Merritt in Darkness at Dawn, Catherine is portrayed as strong and independent. Both Lucy and Catherine are educated up the wazoo: Lucy was a polyglot and Catherine is a neurologist. In this book, Catherine is lonely and somewhat isolated, mainly because she is uniquely different, having a preternatural ability to sense feelings. Her empathic ability causes her pain if she touches a hateful person, but in Mac’s case, she is suffused with a beautiful blazing light whenever they touch skin to skin, and so is Mac.

Secondary characters were nicely developed, too. I liked Stella the chef, and Jon and Nick, the other two Ghost Ops / former Seals. The secondary character that I was the most drawn to was a patient in the dementia clinic where Catherine worked.

RELATIONSHIP: I enjoyed seeing Mac’s reactions to Catherine. Her behavior was so different from what he expected, and he was constantly thrown by it. He did move a little too fast from suspicion to devotion and passion, but it worked okay for me. I like lots of sexual tension leading to a few sizzling scenes. I love a Beauty and the Beast story. Mac was loyal, loving, protective – all things honorable – but he felt unattractive, good for only a fuck in the dark. Even his comrades balked a little at his ugly mug. Catherine saw the beauty of his soul, as in this quote towards the end of the book:

♥“At some level she knew he wasn’t handsome. He was scarred, his skin was pockmarked with old acne scars. His nose had been broken several times and was flat against his face. But she didn’t’ see that, she saw him, what he was, beneath the skin. In that place only she could see. And he was so beautiful.”♥

PLOT: I liked the basic premise of the plot – it was intriguing, and it engaged my sense of injustice and outrage. Catherine is a neurologist studying dementia at a clinic near Stanford University. Unbeknownst to her, the clinic is breaking all the rules for experimenting on human subjects. Before the book begins, one of her patients ( #9) communicates with her telepathically (sort of), giving her an urgent message for Mac. So Catherine heads off to find Mac in the mountains of Northern California, relying only on the images #9 projected. Mac rescues her from “death-by-snow-storm” and takes her to his secret bat cave. He is suspicious of her – how did she know where he was hiding? Who does she work for? What’s her game?

Even though I liked the premise, the plot is poorly developed for a good chunk of the book. The suspense about the clinic was interrupted by birthing babies, baking cookies, making whoopee. That’s the plot for a large chunk of the book – just Mac moving from distrust to passionate love for Catherine (all very ツ sexy) and Catherine gaining the trust of the other Seals and becoming a welcome member of the entire hidden community (all very ♥ sweet). But meanwhile, I kept thinking, “URGENT!! Code Delta!! Make love later!! Go Go Go! Save #9 before he dies!”

ツ However, in the last fourth of the book the action heats up rapidly and doesn’t slow until the end. The Ghosts Ops do what they do best. Catherine really rocks, showing courage and intelligence, and insisting on coming along to raid the clinic since she is a doctor and knows the floor plan. Her inclusion in the op nearly gives Mac a heart-attack, he’s so worried about her, but he lets her come, which is cool. In the end, all’s well that ends well, and we are left with a teaser for the sequel.

Unlike some romantic thrillers, the actual “undercover op" at the clinic made sense. It seemed believable. Nothing totally implausible in how Catherine and the Ghost Ops saved the day. A big plus for me. ★Kudos, Rice!★

Sadly, no epilogue. I wanted to know more about how the "other" guys were doing (no spoilers). Will wait for book 2.

FRUSTRATING BITS: The time-line was a little hard to follow. Also, if it had only been a year since the Ghost Ops escaped the court martial, how did they get their secret "Haven" so well equipped, developed, even perfected? It was just not plausible, especially given their wanted status. At first, I really was stumped as to how they got the money, on military pay grade, to develop their Haven, but then it was explained. They are cyber-stealing from drug lords in Columbia. Okay, that works.

WRITING STYLE: Personally, I do not like too much inner dialogue, especially when I have to “hear” the same thoughts over and over. That happened a lot. Cat reflects on how she’s been resisting her empathic talent all of her life, and how she has never been able to truly connect with anyone deeply. She repeatedly compares Mac to the nerdy scientists she dated. Mac is even worse! He reflects on how a beautiful woman never could love him. About 60 times (!!) he thinks about Catherine’s beauty. Her beautiful face, beautiful silver eyes, beautiful hands. She was “blindingly beautiful” and “the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen” and “they were like Beauty and the Beast” and she was “too beautiful to touch.” It just got silly: “Even her back, beautiful as it was, looked mad.”

Yada yada yada. I get it already! She’s a babe! So what?

Bottom line: A decent romance but a somewhat frustrating reading experience. Glad I read it, and I will read book 2, but I hope Lisa Marie tightens things up a bit in book 2. She needs to delete the ruminative redundancies. I also hope she takes a lighter hand with the religious cursing.

[Mandi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before I get into the review, let me start by saying how crazy and over the top Lisa Marie Rice books can be. I feel like I have to put that warning out there if you are a LMR virgin. The characters are all super intelligent, super stealthy. They have millions of dollars of security and weapons and the most advanced technology ever. And when they fall in love, it becomes the most grand emotional, sexy relationship ever. I totally understand how some will read this book and just shake their head and say, no thank you. I find it fun and entertaining and wacky. Okay, maybe this one at the end is a little too wacky, but let me set it up.

Tom McEnroe, or ‘Mac’ was on a mission with his fellow Ghost Ops men set to destroy a lab they thought was building a bubonic plague weapon, when things go bad. He thinks his team is betrayed by his commanding officer Lucius Ward. At the end, only Mac, John and Nick escape. As the entire government thinks these three are now the enemy, they have to go off the grid to survive. They create their own little world, deep within a secret location, taking in other stragglers along the way that need refuge. They steal money from other bad organizations to fund their massive hidey-hole. (although they call it something much more technical. I enjoy a good hidey-hole).

Catherine Young is a neuro-scientist who specializes in dementia. She thinks she is helping to find a cure, but what her boss has not told her is that he is trying to develop the super soldier, and then build an army and go back to China to rule the world (simple goals really). One of the men she is working on is Lucius Ward aka Mac’s former team leader. She just thinks he is in the later stages of dementia. But all of a sudden she starts to receive images from him. Catherine has always been able to read people’s emotions by touching them, but Lucius is throwing her mental images. She feels compelled to go searching for this man named Mac, and in a trance, gets in her car which just happens to drive to the ultra-secret world where Mac lives. He thinks she is an enemy. But deep down Catherine knows she must break through his defenses and tell Mac that Lucius is alive, that he did not betray his team and that everyone is in danger!

First, I’m not a fan of character with telepathy. And in this book I feel like the rules of Catherine’s telepathy aren’t very solid. For the most part she can only read someone’s emotions by touching them. But she gets these blasts of super powers in this book that sometimes let her see images and at times even communicate telepathically with people. Like – when it is convenient. So I didn’t love that.

What I did like is this whole set-up. This book takes place about 10 years in the future (they have the iphone 15 – giggle snort). But Mac and his crew are alpha, top of the line security (Mac has a keyboard under the skin of his wrist) and are experts at everything. They live in this crazy dome of a world where everyone is thriving. It’s fun and entertaining. Like I said, if you start to nit-pick this book, you would be here all day.

Not only is the setting over the top fun, but the romance in this one is too. First of all, Mac is an ‘ugly’ hero – and oh how I love an ugly hero

He’d been born ugly, with big, irregular features. An opponent who’d had a boot knife and slashed his face open with it has scarred one side of his face, and then the Arka fire that had burned the other side of his face had taken care of the rest.

At first Mac thinks Catherine is the enemy, so there is much tightening of the jaw, and secret meetings with his men. But when Mac is convinced Catherine is genuine and she is telling the truth, there is literally a 180 degree turn and they go from enemies to completely in love. Mac isn’t used to women finding him attractive, they usually run away screaming. He finds peace and love with Catherine (all within 3 days). I would have liked to see this romance develop a little slower. It’s totally insta-love the first time Mac sticks his peen in Catherine.

He drew in a deep breath and felt her breasts and belly slide against him. He closed his eyes, then opened them. “I think we should talk, but I don’t think I can pull out. Just not an option.”

His dick had a mind of its own and nodded enthusiastically inside her.

Oh that silly dick.

Oh Christ. Mac pulled out just a little – a teeny bit because his dick definitely did not want to face the cold, cruel world outside Catherine’s body – then slid back in. Jesus. Tight. Very tight. Very, very tight.

Seriously, his dick steals the book.

So yes, totally over the top but fun. I have to take points off for the telepathic powers Catherine has and insta-love Mac and Catherine develop in three days. I also think much page time is spent with the villains and that bored me at some points. Otherwise a fun book and I can’t wait for Nick and Jon’s books to come out.

Rating: B-

[~ Becs ~ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t get the novel I expected after I read the blurb but I did really enjoy it, all the same. I had kind of expected a fairly standard military style romantic suspense but what we got was a slightly paranormal, slightly futuristic, fairly steamy romance. It’s based around a community of ex-military outlaws living a very high-tech existence outside of the law and regular society after an Op went bad a few years ago and they were all branded criminals.

As this is the beginning of a new series there’s a lot of character-establishing and world-building going on. In fact, this is slightly futuristic, set some 11 years after the death of Osama Bin Laden, a world of e-cars, iPhone 15’s and iPad 8’s. There’s a lot of interrupted, introspective narrative as the characters reflect on the past to help establish the background that brought the characters to where we join them now.

It all takes quite a while to get going - the romance between Catherine and Mac takes a very long time to warm up although there’s a simmering attraction constantly running through the story but, despite all this, every time Max reached out to steady Catherine or worried about her in just the smallest way, my stomach did flip-flops and my insides pretty much liquefied. He’s quite the hero but really not classically handsome, he’s burned and scarred but he’s a big, built man, he’s alpha, growly and protective and I melted into a puddle every time he walked onto the page. Lisa Marie Rice has always given good hero and this one is no exception.

Catherine is a great heroine – she’s earnest, honest, driven, highly intelligent and has great integrity and she’s also something of an empath. She’s able to tap into people’s emotions by touching them. She regards this as both a gift and a curse and it is this skill which lies at the heart of the story leading the men of the community and herself into an Op which will have your heartbeat racing as the suspense switches up several gears.

I think it’s fair to say that the first half of the novel is a slow burner as there is so much to set up but both the suspense and the romance intensify tenfold in the second half as the novel builds towards its pulsating conclusion by which point I was reading at breakneck speed, totally unable to put it down. I really did enjoy the emotional intensity of the relationship between Mac and Catherine when they finally succumbed to that overwhelming mutual attraction and they have some very passionate and steamy sex scenes.

It’s a very promising start to what I expect will be a very good series and I'm very much looking forward to Book 2.

4 stars romantic suspense


ARC courtesy of Avon Books via Edelweiss

For more reviews, please visit Sinfully Sexy Book Blog

[♥Laddie♥ (Lee Lee) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Your Vagina Is A Glow Worm

In the dead of night
In a snow storm on a mountain
15 years in the future (but hey, who's countin'?)
There sits Dr. Catherine Young in a eCar that's dead
"Bitch, why you on a mountain?!"
In my head that's what I said

See, here's the thing; Dr. Cat is an empath and when she feels one patient's pleas, Catherine decides to go on a mission. She's looking for Tom "Mac" McEnroe. So, the mountain's where she's sitting, about to bite the big one when a big dude pulls her out, ties her hands, throws a hood over her head and takes her away to parts unknown. I'd rather die quietly in a cold car than be carted off like a POW. Then again, this is a Lisa Marie Rice book and drama, if nothing else, is the name of the game.

Tom "Mac" McEnroe was once super secret special forces
If you don't believe it just look at his pin
An eagle made from the gun that killed Bin Laden
Mac's team was betrayed and now they're The Most Wanted
So, when Catherine Young shows up
Mac's suspicious because he's being hunted

Lisa Marie Rice is fond of the big, brooding, scarred, not-so-handsome, Navy SEAL heroes who could kill you with a death glare. Mac is no exception. Actually, Mac is more scarred than the rest. He's got a huge scar on one side of his face where he got knifed and the other side of his face is scarred by a fire. His body is also scarred from shrapnel. Basically the dude FUCKED UP. The only thing that hadn't happened was a tiger biting off his dick or something.

Mac takes Catherine to his secret Haven
An off-the-grid community built in a mountain
And there's an only 2 or 3 hour interrogation done
But, once again, who's countin'...
The important thing is the sex waves all up in the air
And the fact that Mac thinks Catherine has really shiny hair

Seriously, during the interrogation Mac keeps getting sidetracked by Catherine's hair and her great rack and her alabaster skin and just how generally impossible gorgeous and delicate she is. Mac, concentrate fool!! You have a secret community depending on you and like EVERY government agency there is searching for your ass. Stop getting googly eyed over some damn hair! This happens all the time in LMR books though so I kinda just smiled when the interrogation scene played out.

Now there's a plot about secret drug
Being cooked up on the sly
And a crafty Chinese-American businessman
Who'll use it to help China take over the world
Before everyone's surprised eyes
Because if anyone hates America it's this book's bad guy

The plot about the secret drug and the bad guy's plan to take down America was actually kind of interesting and carried the book for a good while. I mean there's no kissing or sex until almost 60% I think. *GASP*

Once the sexytimes commence it's a real treat
Because this is more than the usual LMR that people read
Good 'ol Cat is emapathic and I guess Mac is her other half
When things got hot and heavy and the cum started to flow
All I can say is...

CATHERINE'S TITS AND VAG FREAKING GLOWED!!!

I am laughing my ass off just thinking about it. That is something I have seriously never read in any other book. Who thinks to have someone's vagina glow? Who??? Lisa Marie Rice, that's who.

There were some things I had to ignore
Like using the word sproinged in a sex scene
But all in all I thought this book was pretty keen
I mean there was more story than sex
And I want to read the rest of the series
So, bring on the next book, Rice...please please PLEASE!

[Elizabeth (Liz) · Rating 3 out of 5]

On a mission to destroy a US-based lab working on weaponized bubonic plague, the Ghost Ops team is betrayed by their commanding officer, Lucius Ward. The Team is slaughtered, and only three men survive to be court martialed: the Team Leader, Tom 'Mac' McEnroe, tech genius John Ryan, and lethal Nick Ross. On the way to prison, they disappear. They are never heard from again.

Ensconced in a high-tech hideout, Mac and his men are completely off the grid. Somehow, resourceful Dr. Catherine Young manages to locate the missing men. Dr. Young is on a mission to find Mac McEnroe, and she comes with a dangerous message from a patient of hers. An all too familiar patient.

Lisa Marie Rice used to be a favorite author of mine. Her books were steamy, exciting, and they had a certain spark that pulled me in and made me eager for the next book. Either her writing has changed, or my reading tastes have changed. And, I honestly don't know which it is. When I read the synopsis of Heart of Danger, I was very excited for the book. It sounded like a story I could really sink my teeth into and enjoy. Unfortunately, that just didn't happen for me. I can't even articulate why exactly. But, I do feel that the spark that used to be there is gone. At least for me. And, that could totally be on me. My tastes may very well have expanded in new and different directions.

There *is* an audience for this book. I'm familiar with a number of individuals who will read and *love* this book. That makes me happy. That means my faith in reading is well-founded. There *is* a book for everyone, and an audience for almost any book. Even if our tastes change and grow:-)


2.75 Stars!


***My thanks to Edelweiss and Harper Collins for the opportunity to read this ARC.

[Jane Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weak 3 stars. I liked the characters and overall plot, but too much pondering. I skimmed a lot.

I always enjoy this author’s characters and the hero’s out of control sexual desire for her. But I also want a good story. Here she could have told the story in a third of the time. The author does fun pondering. For example he’s thinking about his strength and skills in battle, yet he loses all that when he’s around her. I like the pondering, but there is too much. I skimmed to get to the next line in conversation, or the next someone doing something. I wish the author spent more time developing the plot, the relationship, and the characters. She could have done more with the four patients. One minor thing that puzzled me: patient nine has gone through multiple surgeries and is strapped to a bed. So how did he have a pin to give to Catherine? Did he tell her where it might be stored with his clothing?

The fantasy element is Catherine’s telepathic ability to sense emotions when touching someone.

DATA:
Narrative mode: 3rd person. Story length: 295 pages. Swearing language: strong including religious swear words. Sexual language: strong. Number of sex scenes: 5. Setting: mostly 2022 California. Copyright: 2012. Genre: romantic suspense with fantasy.

[Shadi ***save your ratings use disclaimers** · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book back in 2010 and thought it was ok. It was a solid contemporary romance and held my attention.. At the time I rated it a 3 star, it was good but not much stood out to me.. As I continued on in the series I was surprised by the twist the storyline took and delighted because of the original and interesting series plotline I am changing my rating to a 5 star for a whole series rating.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review posted: Happily Ever After - Reads
Blog rating: B

The new Ghost Ops series by Lisa Marie Rice is set about twelve years in the future, although it feels like light years into the future with the advanced technology that’s available to the characters. After a mission gone horribly wrong, it fractures the Ghost Ops team, a military team made up of men who have no past, their existence is wiped out. The mission leaves three surviving team members who believe that their Captain led them knowingly into the ambush. With the rest of their team presumed dead, the men now led by Mac, along with Jon and Nick, flee to a remote abandoned mine and start over. They have skills and set about building a refuge that ends up not only serving as their home and home base, but people who need to escape and disappear find them. Somehow, someway they attract the people that need them and they’ve created their own little world that’s hidden away from everything.

Catherine is working with dementia patients when one of her current patients provides her with information in the most unique way. Catherine has a supernatural ability through touch. She can sense feelings, but in touching this particular patient she’s able to see pictures and scenes from his past. Her patient is unable to speak but “projects” to how important it is that she find Mac. She’s sees the exact path she needs to take and isn’t able to fight the compulsion to go off and chase down this stranger all because of the intense feelings she got from her patient.

Catherine and Mac meet early on and Mac is very skeptical, fiercely protective of the people he’s helping hide in their community and has no time for Catherine and her farfetched story. She’s able to convince him enough to keep her around and when it comes out as to who the patient may be that she’s been working with, the men start to reevaluate everything they originally believed about that long ago mission that destroyed their lives and start to plan a rescue mission. The story broke down into two main parts, the romance between Catherine and Mac and the overall building of this series and the world we’re introduced to.

Mac is a hero who’s described as ugly. His face is scarred on one side, burned on the other. It’s said many times that he was not a handsome man, but his main focus has been building their community and he’s become the leader by default. Catherine is a loner, she spent more time in the labs working than she ever did making friends, of which, she has none and no family. She should be terrified of Mac, but through her gift/curse of touch she’s able to tell pretty quickly that he’s a tough, mean guy but means her no harm. Their connection takes quite a bit to build up, but going from the point of Mac being anti-romance with Catherine to him devoting his life to her, it happened like the flip of a switch. It was pretty fast, once they had sex - that was it for him. She was his, he couldn’t imagine living without her, and their sex was fast and furious. On the one hand, I like a scarred, angry hero who falls for the sweet heroine and wants to love and protect her. It just went from one extreme to the other with Mac. But this whole story was little extreme so I went with it and ended up enjoying their romance. The sex was hot, Catherine is incredibly sweet and Mac is fierce. It was a combination that worked.

The bad guy, Lee, is the type of enemy I love to hate. He’s testing out a drug in the US that he wants to take back to China with him and administer it to their soldiers to become the perfect fighting machines. The drug enhances abilities but is incredibly dangerous and hasn’t gotten out of the testing stages yet. I wanted to slap Lee so many times. He’s testing on animals, on humans, he’s perfectly evil and a bit insane.

For the series set up, we’re introduced to some of the residents of this secret world which include Mac’s two other teammates, Jon and Nick, a former actress turned chef for the community who needed to escape a stalker, a couple who ran away from an abusive situation. This group of people have created a super high-tech, safe haven for themselves and they protect it and each other. The technology is so advanced it was actually kind of fun to see what Lisa Marie Rice was coming up with in the creative department with all the new devices and heck, even a desk chair that I was envious about. The heart of this story is with the people and with the rescue mission that ends this story, all I can say is – I want more! I loved what I got with the supporting characters, there’s enough detail given to them to make them intriguing and I want to know what their individual stories. The ending isn’t clear cut, in fact Catherine may still be in danger in future books and I’m good with that, for now. It definitely has the potential to be a strong ongoing storyline and at this point, I’m really curious to see where everything is heading, with the plot and with the characters.

I was a little ‘eh’ about having a character with supernatural powers, it’s not normally my thing in a non-PNR book, and judging by how the book ends, it’s going to continue to be a major theme in this series. But, I ended up having fun getting to know the characters and the world that I didn’t really care in the end. I enjoyed Mac and Catherine as leads, but I’m a lot more interested to see where this series is going. This is a strong start and as I said above, I’m ready for more.

[CC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this story! It was interesting and suspenseful. I loved the MCs.

[★¸. • * ° *Jillie* ° *•.¸☆ · Rating 5 out of 5]

O-ttttay, here we go. I read these books when they first came out but in the current world situation, these books were so much fun to read again.

Book ONE, Heart of Danger, by far was my favorite of the series. A dark road, a stalled car and everything else like her cell phone will not work. Pitch black, cold and snowing, then Catherine meets, the beast, Mac.

This book Is a fast paced romp filled with imagination, and a really cool hidden village. Paranormal events, guns, an evil scientist, a questionable lab, and a VIRUS in the making, Missing people, betrayal and trust. Close friends and room for new friends.

I really like Mac. He was the most likeable unlikeable character. Slashed and burnt he was not pretty, but he made room for Catherine. I loved their romance through all this action.

“Not Mac. Women didn’t fall for Mac. Women didn’t even like looking at him. One look at his face and they either ran screaming or decided he was good for one thing and one thing only—a fuck. After which they were gone.
Fine by him. He’d been born ugly with big, irregular features. An opponent who’d had a boot knife and slashed his face open with it had scarred one side of his face, and then the Arka fire that had burned the other side of his face had taken care of the rest. Most people flinched when they saw him the first time. They avoided looking at him as if looking at him could cause them harm like that Greek lady with the snakes for hair who turned anyone who looked at her to stone.”

“Fabulous.” She pushed her plate across to him. “Try it yourself. You need to put on weight. You look awful.”
He winced. “I’ve never been handsome, honey. If that’s what you want, you’re with the wrong guy. However, if you do find that guy I will bust his pretty face to a pulp so you might as well stick with me.”
She grinned. “Eat.”

Catherine, cool under fire, steady and morally driven. She’s gifted and needs to make Mac comprehend all he understands is wrong. Good luck there.

The plot, beauty and the beast, was great but I REALLY liked all the gadgets that were invented for this story. I want the invisible million dollar chair. I loved all the drones, scanners, computers, monitors etc… It was fun. Invisible ear pods, arm key boards ... I want all this stuff.

The secondary character are well developed and show up soon in books two and three. If you haven’t read these books they are GREAT QUARANTINE BOOKS !!!!

The Narration was fab !!! read by Seraphine Valentine, I would gladly listen to her in future books. Her timing and inflection for each character was spot on.

There are some personal sad parts when Alzheimer’s is talked about. My husband is late stage and some of this touched home. And in real life it is wonderful to know that people are working very hard to find the cure. I can only hope that it is soon. God bless the caretakers.

Enjoy ~ Let me know if you read these books.... Spoiler.. sort of... the VIRUS IS MADE BY A COMPANY CALLED CORONA ! Can't make this up. published in 2013. There are so many parallels to what is happening today...

"His sophomore year, the OECD officially announced that the Chinese economy was bigger than the American economy. And growing, as the American economy was not.
It was clear all around him—Americans were poor and getting poorer. It had lost its faith in itself and was hunkered down, hoping the new winds blowing over the world would pass soon. But that was not the nature of the winds of change."

[Vanessa theJeepDiva · Rating 2 out of 5]

The brand new Ghost Ops series has many incredible elements. I loved the fact that it was set in the not too distant future. My guess would be 10-15 years in the future. There is a tiny paranormal element to some of the people in this future. The human race has evolved just a tiny bit. The technology that the characters are surrounded by was cool and definitely stuff I would want to see in the future.

It would appear that corruption has gotten worse, thus people have decided that Haven is a better place to live. A big high five to Jon and where he gets Haven’s funding from. I loved that! Mac is the founder/leader of Haven. It is a refuge for people who need to disappear because of the evils in the world. The people have come from there for many different reasons. They all have one thing in common. They never want to be found.

Mac and what is left of his team are hiding from every law enforcement agency on the planet. They have been framed for a crime that took the lives of several members of their team. Catherine has followed the request of a dying patient and done the impossible. She has found Mac and his hidden Haven of outcasts.

Catherine and Mac didn’t do anything for me. Mac is in fact too much of a contradiction for me to enjoy reading. He is initially introduced as the most bad ass elite operative there is. Catherine turns him into a mushy softie almost immediately. I also skimmed their sex scenes. There are just some scenes in a book where an electrical socket should never be mentioned. I found nothing to connect to with Mac and Catherine.
They never fleshed out into people that I wanted to know more about.

I want to know more about patient’s 9, 27, 28, and 29. I will most likely read the next book in this series just to know more about them. At some point while reading Heart of Danger I became more interested in patient 9 than I was in Mac and Catherine. Lee also makes a formidable villain and with his discoveries at the end I know he will bring more trouble to the group of outcast that hideaway at Haven. He now has multiple reasons to find Haven.

[MountainKat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting world and interesting characters. A bit slow to get started, but the end moved very quickly! Perhaps because there was so much devoted to creating the world and the set up of the story. I really liked Catherine and I grew to like Mac. He was almost too hard in the beginning. As usual, the bad guys were very bad and I was left with some anxiety about the future books in the series. Not my favorite by LMR, but still quite good. What I really hate is the wait for the next one!

[Chantal ❤️]

Author to avoid for me personally until I get information to the contrary, she writes heroes who think back about their past sexual experiences in comparison to the heroine. I strongly dislike this type of thing.
For now this is not for me.

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Information/detail over load. At times it just seemed to ramble on and on. Great story with interesting main characters, but way too much verbiage.

[AH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have you ever wondered what the future looks like? Not the far, distant future, but perhaps around 10 years from now? Will we all be driving electric cars? What gadgets would exist to make our lives easier? Heart of Danger is set approximately 10 years into the future. This allowed the author to create some nifty military gadgets while poking fun at the many incarnations of the iPhone and the iPad. iPhone 15, anyone?

Heart of Danger takes a disbanded Navy Seal team (the same team responsible for the assassination of Osama bin Laden, no less!) and takes them off the grid in a top secret location. Their last mission, a raid on a pharmaceutical lab, ending badly and several team members were lost. The remaining team members, along with a rag-tag group of fugitives, survivors, and others live in their mountain hideout.

I loved the secret mountain community. It had a certain “James Bond Villain hideaway” feel to it, minus the monorail. This team of fugitives created the ultimate self-sufficient community inside the mountain, complete with an area to grow fruits and vegetables. The camaraderie among the residents was also very nice.

The leader of this community Tom McEnroe or Mac is an imposing figure. Mac was injured on that last mission and his face was scarred. Mac’s world changes for the better when Dr. Catherine Young enters his life.

Catherine is an intriguing character. She’s brainy, she’s kind, and she’s fearless. Catherine is dedicated to her life’s work and had little time for any kind of social life. It was at her work where Catherine learns of the Mount Blue compound in a rather unorthodox way. Catherine has a psychic ability. She reads the emotions of others through touch. When Catherine touched a research subject, she was surprised by his emotions, so much so that she felt the need to seek out Mac.

Mac and Catherine were a fun couple to watch. At first, Mac is very suspicious of Catherine. Slowly, as his guard is let down, he allows Catherine to enter his life and the life of the compound. Mac is a little oblivious of Catherine’s attraction to him – he can’t believe that someone as beautiful as Catherine would be interested in him.

A note about our villain, Charles Lee. Charles was one of those “over the top” kind of villains. The chapters written from his point of view were very creepy.

This is my first Lisa Marie Rice Novel and it certainly won’t be my last. I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author and I hope that there will be more books in this series.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Harper Collins for a review copy of this book.

Review posted on Badass Book Reviews.

[Sunny☼ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This new series In My Opinion is a winner. Mat is the alpha hero with the scarred face and sole, brooding eyes and heart. Catherine is the specially gifted scientist that could be the perfect person to make a huge difference in Mat's life in so many ways.

The Ghost ops are divided and scattered. Some are hiding away in a mountain. Rice has created such an imaginative community with all the bells and whistles anyone could hope for, for these hideaways. The rest of the special Ghost Ops unit are either dead or betrayingly soaking up the sun on an island...or not.

The villian is a very twisted Lee, with plans for power and military perfection. He lives and continues his evil thoughts which include Dr. Catherine Young...once she is found, at the end of the book.

The supporting characters who will very probably have a book of their own in the future are also extemely hot and intelligent. Just the right amount of angst, passion and plot building. There was touch too much pensive thought on Catherine's part that goes no where and really isn't needed. Do I really care why her school friends all wore glasses? For that reason this isn't the five star that I wanted to give. A wonderful read for those who like contemporary military style suspense.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good first in the series and I'm really looking forward to the next books. She leaves it pretty open with the 2 other men(Jon and Nick) and then 4 others towards the end so I hope there is lots of good things to come.

It seemed a little slow at times, and the internal dialog got a bit repetitive. I also think we got a little too much POV from the villain.

Really enjoyed Mac and Catherine and I felt their love. Mac is a heavily scarred ex-military and very much the alpha male and Catherine is the beautiful researcher/doctor with psychic abilities. Mac is also the leader of a secret community known as Haven.

Absolutely loved the world she built its set in the near future 10 to 20 or so years. Neat gadgets, weapons, technology, and all kinds of things hell there is even mention of the iPhone15 and iPad8. Overall I liked it definitely gonna mark my calender for the next one.

Sex Scenes 4 - On the back of the book its labeled Fiction/erotica, I don't see it as erotica there are some steamy/sexy moments yes but I wouldn't call it an erotica book. There's not even a sex scene till chapter 11 (page 174ish).

[Kathrynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointed. Did not feel like an LMR book, to me although some of her typical descriptions and phrases were throughout this book. A science fiction, which I enjoy most of the time, but this one missed out on many important aspects for me. First and foremost, what the heck happened between the H/h ALMOST overnight that they were suddenly having sex? What? I didn't feel the connection. Got sick and tired of all the "poor me, I'm so ugly."

Extremem amount of repetition!!!

The heroine, got on my nerves. Her gift was not done very well and the way she shared her gift was annoying.

The scenes jumped around too much. Right in the middle of one, switch to a way too long inside the "bad guys" mind. Too much detail learning about his sinister plots. Very frustrating.

Thought this book was poorly written. I'm sorry. Missed out for me on so many levels. Started skimming thru the rescue scene and ending just to get finished and read something else. Blech.

[Pamela(AllHoney) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heart of Danger is the first book in Lisa Marie Rice's Ghost Ops series. Dr Catherine Young is looking for Tom "Mac" McEnroe when her car dies in a remote area in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, "Mac" finds her before she freezes to death and takes her to the secret lair. Mac, along with 2 other members of their "Ghost Ops" team were betrayed and framed and forced to disappear. Then Catherine Young shows up and tells them that what they believed to be true wasn't. But can they trust her?

This was alright but not LMR's best. It started out pretty good for me but lagged for a bit in the middle and then picked up towards the end. It was one of those stories that didn't tie up all the loose ends but I guess the future additions of this series will address those issues. I liked it enough that I will continue the series, though.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so full of crazy I don't know where to begin. I was WTF'ing through the whole thing. First I was all 0_0, then 0_o, then O_O.

And...I kind of can't wait to read the next one. clearly I need help.

[TINNGG · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ahhhh... So nice to read a good story written by someone with a decent command of the English language. As near as I can tell, this is a futuristic, though not far into the future (they have some very advanced tech).

The h, as you come to find out, reads people by touch. She's also a scientist and is doing research - she thinks - on dementia patients. Only, one of the patients is not exactly what he seems, and she picks this up.

The story starts out with her stranded on the side of a mountain, her electronics all taken out by an EMP, and a blizzard outside. She's on a mission to find the H. Shortly after this, the H collects her and takes her to his secret community. Over the course of the next however many pages (and 3 days) they get to know each other as well as plan a rescue mission for said patient...who was the leader of the H's group prior to a mission that went sideways.

They do successfully get him (and the other 3 of their team they thought were dead) out of the lab, the h is killed by a stunner...and in a bit of weird woo woo, brought back by the H.

Really, this reads more like the Elizabeth Jennings type of writing than of LMR. There are moments where you get male hysteria (LMR has an odd way of writing heroes as if they're hysterical about their ding dongs in relation to the heroines.) but they're a lot briefer than I'd expect. And the woo woo bits were...out there. Still very readable.

[Dabney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review was originally published at AllAboutRomance. (likesbooks.com)

Lisa Marie Rice’s latest, Heart of Danger, is the first in her new series Ghost Ops. The premise of the series is fairly outrageous. The books are set ten years after the death of Osama Bin Laden and the heroes are members of the “famed SEAL Team Six” that killed him. (Bin Laden was indeed taken out by a real Team Six.) In Ms. Rice’s series, a subset of Team Six became a group of an elite secret military unit called “Ghost Ops.” This group was framed for an illegal botched attack on US soil and court-martialed. Before they could be tried, however, they vanished, and are still being sought by the US government.


This premise didn’t bother me — Ms. Rice’s books are so far-fetched this seemed to be just more of her usual zaniness. I’ve never read a book of hers without rolling my eyes repeatedly, but despite that, I keep reading and enjoying her books. She’s dependably erotic, her plots, though improbable, are page turners, and she’s great with characterization and dialog. I’ve been entertained by many of her books; this one, however, didn’t float my boat.

Tom McEnroe along with two other Team Sixers — now Ghost Ops guys — were on a mission to destroy the Arka Pharmaceutical Laboratories in Massachusetts which they thought was producing a deadly biological weapon. The mission was a disaster — their intel was bogus — and the three men just barely escaped. They vanished, went totally off the grid, and now live in a compound hidden deep in a mountain. Even though this compound is so secret they’ve never been discovered by all the best minds in the CIA, FBI, etc..., the place has become home to others — men and women who also need to disappear - who have found their way there. Tom and his compatriots survive — and boy do they survive; the compound is a Shangri-La of a place — by electronically stealing millions from evil drug lords.

Catherine Young is an uber-brilliant neuro-scientist who works at an Arka research facility in Northern California studying dementia. She thinks she’s doing work that will lead to a cure but in reality the head of the lab is a depraved nut-case attempting to develop a drug that will turn men into super soldiers. Dr. Lee is doing this because he plans to create an undefeatable army for his home country of China. His favorite man to experiment on is the former head of Team Six, Lucius Ward, whose men he think betrayed them in the blown-up lab incident. Tom and the other Ghost Op guys think Lucius is off enjoying ill-gotten gains, but really the poor guy is being tortured by Dr. Lee who keeps trying all his nasty super soldier drugs out on him. Most subjects die when exposed to the various derivations of this drug, but Lucius — a real life super soldier — has stayed alive.

Still with me? Because that’s just the set-up.

Catherine has a secret super power — she can read someone’s emotions just by touching the person. She’s kept this a secret from most — it freaks out people — and Dr. Lee does not know she can do this. This is important because Catherine is allowed to study Lucius who seems, most of the time, almost comatose. He, however, has recently begun sending Catherine telepathic messages. These messages tell her she must get in her little electric car, drive up a mountain in a snowstorm, and find Tom McEnroe. So, she does this, almost freezes to death, and is rescued by — bingo — Tom McEnroe whose hideout is in the mountain.

Tom brings her back to his world — he can do this because he has a drug that will completely wipe her memory of being in the compound if need be — and grills her. She tells him she was sent by Lucius and that not only is Lucius alive (and not evil), he and several other Ghost Op men are being held in the Arka Lab and are on the verge of death. They must be rescued! Tom and his crew — their technology makes James Bond’s look like the printing press — run checks on Catherine and decide to let her stay in their compound while they research Arka and a whole host of other things that involve rescuing their team.

Within hours of Catherine’s arrival, Tom falls deeply in lust with her. She is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen and he knows she’d never want him because he’s ugly. One side of his face is scarred from a knife fight; the other is marred by burns from the bungled lab attack. Catherine, though, is just as attracted to him. And before you can say “Hey, it’s only been two damn days,” the two are madly in love and having sex around the clock. Well, not all the time. Some of the time they are coming up with an utterly unbelievable plan to save Lucius and the other men from the clutches of the evil Dr. Lee.

It was all too much for me. I’m all for mindless fun, but this book was too wacky for me. It’s also insanely complicated. At times, I wasn’t sure what was going on for stretches of the book — even though the storyline takes place in less than a week. The villains were evil and yet silly. The science was so removed from reality it was nonsensical.

And while I’ve enjoyed Ms. Rice’s eroticism before, the sex in this book made me giggle. At one point, Tom’s penis, buried deep in Catherine’s heavenly passage, “nodded enthusiastically.” Tom’s penis is actually a character in its own right. When Tom tries to lift his huge body off of Catherine’s so she can get some rest after several rounds of mind-blowing sex,

….his body didn’t want to leave hers, not in any way. Not even separating his chest from her breasts. And farther below, his dick was screaming “Are you crazy? You want out of here? What’s the matter with you?”

The talking dick, the convoluted plot, the insta-love, the excessively evil baddies, and Catherine’s random super-power made Heart of Danger less than compelling for me. I spent too much time either giggling at things that weren’t intended to be funny or shaking my head at the latest ludicrous twist. I give it a C.

[Amy Sanders · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much pondering!
Good grief. My first book by this author.
So many times, throughout the book, I felt that the pondering was like being bogged down in weeds.
I also found myself fast forwarding through much of the scenes. Turns out I didn’t miss anything.

I will try another book at a different time.

[Nonieღserenity2bliss · Rating 3 out of 5]

It doesn't feel like a LMR's novel. I missed the intense chemistry that her characters usually have. If I didn't know any better, I would think that Christine Feehan wrote this as a joke.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heart of Danger is the first book in Lisa Marie Rice's new Ghost Ops series and is a great introduction to the characters and the world they're living in. The Ghosts were an elite military group who carried out dangerous and secret missions but their last job went horribly wrong after they were betrayed by their commander. Only Mac, Jon and Nick survived the mission and after being set up to look like terrorists they are on the top of the government's most wanted list. The three of them are determined to prove their innocence and find out exactly how they were set up but in the meantime they have created an underground Haven for themselves and others who are in danger. The Haven is a top secret lair hidden within a mountain and Mac and the others will protect its inhabitants with their lives, they have built a small but thriving community where they can be self sufficient and remain under their enemies radar.

Dr Catherine Young works for a pharmaceutical company that is trying to find a cure for dementia and she works closely with patients who are taking part in a new drug trial. Thanks to her gift (or curse as she sees it) and her ability to feel people's emotions by touching them Catherine quickly realises that all is not what it seems with one of her patients. She risks everything when patient 9 asks her to track down Mac and his men and go to them for help. Mac is shocked at how easily Catherine finds the Haven, she should never have been able to get that close to their compound and he immediately suspects that she has been sent by their enemies to spy on them. The more he finds out about her the more he comes to believe her story and the Ghosts realise that everything they believed about the mission that went wrong was a lie and their former colleague is in great danger. Can Catherine help them to rescue patient 9 before he is killed by their enemies?

I'm going to admit that it was the cover that first brought my attention to Heart of Danger (well who wouldn't be drawn to it?!) but it was the blurb that convinced me I needed to read the book. I love this kind of series where you have a group of undercover military / ex-military alpha heroes who are trying to uncover who betrayed them. I can never resist an alpha hero but one of the things I love most is the sense of community that develops as you get to know the characters better throughout the series. The Haven is a great community, most of the inhabitants are civilians who found themselves in trouble by being brave enough to stand up against various forms of corruption. As a group they are wary of letting anyone new into the group but once they accept someone they become part of the family. Everyone brings their own unique skill set to the group and I'm looking forward to learning more about the inhabitant's stories in future books.

To get back to our main characters I have to say how much I loved Mac, he is smart, strong and incredibly protective of the community and those he cares about. He doesn't have to think twice before risking his own life to keep others safe and although he didn't want to be the group's leader he has stepped up to the role because they needed him to. When he falls for Catherine he falls hard and I love watching a growly alpha type who gets turned into a mushy teddy bear by his woman. I admired him for wanting to protect Catherine and keep her safely at Haven while he went to rescue patient 9 but I admired him even more for respecting that she was intelligent enough to be an asset to him and his team and to realise that they wouldn't be able to complete the rescue without her. It goes against all his instincts to take Catherine into a danger zone but he does it because he knows it is the only option. Catherine is a worthy heroine for Mac. She has always been isolated by her gift, even her family thought she was a freak and she has never really had any friends or close relationships. Her career means everything to her but she doesn't think twice about risking it all to help patient 9. She is compassionate, warm and loving and deserves to have someone who doesn't make her feel like a freak, someone who loves her for who and what she is and that is what she finds with Mac. I loved the way their relationship developed and you can expect to go on a sexy journey with them because their chemistry is combustible.

Overall Heart of Danger is a great start to the series and the story has everything you could wish for from this kind of romantic suspense - a group of swoonworthy alpha males (I can't wait for Jon and Nick's stories!) with access to all the guns and explosives they could possibly need, an action packed storyline, great romance with fab sexy times, interesting side characters that you want to learn more about and an evil villain who will turn your stomach with his horrible deeds. I can't wait to get my hands on I Dream of Danger and see what happens to the Ghosts next and I'd highly recommend this book to any fan of romantic suspense.

[Simply Love Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitty's review posted on Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

I was enthralled by “Heart of Danger” from page 1. Lisa Marie Rice grabs you with the first page and doesn’t stop – not even at the end of the book and I am really looking forward to where she is bringing this story.

The first novel of the Ghost Ops brings together Mac and Catherine. Two people who are the most unlikely to ever get together. She’s a beautiful scientist. He’s a tough and rough soldier. She has a special gift. He doesn’t trust anyone. She is employed by Arka Pharmaceuticals. He was betrayed during the raid of Arka Pharmaceuticals. How can he trust this beautiful woman who he found freezing in her car while looking for him? How can she gain the trust of a man who has had nothing but betrayal in his life? Now, she must depend on the gift that she tried to suppress her whole life. But, will he believe all that she is about to tell him?

“Heart of Danger” is set in the future with a beautiful city built into a mountain. The city is filled with people who are being hunted or have been betrayed. They look to Mac as their leader, their savior – the one person who they can depend on. Working with Mac are Jon and Nick, the other two survivors from the explosion. They have vowed to protect all that they have left and the people of Mount Blue. No matter the cost. Mac feels that all the people who are living in this utopia that he as created, have been brought there for a reason. Was Catherine sent to them as well?

I seriously do not want to give away too much of this story. A lot happens with several different characters playing key roles with many surprises and twists and turns in the book. Ultimately, Catherine and Mac do fall deeply in love and he realizes that she was sent to him for a reason – to get him to trust again – to get him to believe in more than himself. I love that Mac is and alpha male, but not one that we are used to. His insecurities with himself, the way he looks, has him believing that someone as beautiful and talented as Catherine could never want someone that looks like him. I fell in love with Mac and totally admired Catherine for looking beyond his looks and into his heart. And, the ending – WOW! I ended the book with a huge smile on my face – so happy for the both of them and wondering what is in store for them in the future.

While reading “Heart of Danger”, I was awed with the way Ms. Rice had the story flowing. It was fast-paced and very well written. And the way she described Mount Blue and it’s residents were wonderful. You felt you could see the city, feel the energy and the love that everyone had for their home and their leader. She brought you into the story and didn’t let you out.

Review copy provided for an honest review.