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Task Force Eagle #1
Never Surrender
Part of a series, but a stand-alone novel with its own conclusion. No cliff-hangers.
When DEA Agent Ricardo Cruz has a lead in Maine to the cartel that killed his brother, his vanished suspect's loyal sister, Juliana Paris, refuses to cooperate. Juliana's quick wit and loyalty draw him, but he can't afford involvement with her.
Juliana intends to find her brother and ensure the law treats him fairly. She's determined not to fall for the sexy agent, even if he is dedicated and honorable. Threats by the cartel, who plan to use her to lure her brother, force her to accept Rick's protection.
Juliana wants no charmer like the men her mother keeps marrying, and Rick wants no strings. Although attraction sparks between them, they're at odds and their personalities are polar opposites, but they must work together. Their hunt for her brother and the cartel's Maine connection leads them into each other's arms and into deadly danger.
Entire Always a Suspect (Prequel), Never Surrender, Once Burned, Twice a Target
When DEA Agent Ricardo Cruz has a lead in Maine to the cartel that killed his brother, his vanished suspect's loyal sister, Juliana Paris, refuses to cooperate. Juliana's quick wit and loyalty draw him, but he can't afford involvement with her.
Juliana intends to find her brother and ensure the law treats him fairly. She's determined not to fall for the sexy agent, even if he is dedicated and honorable. Threats by the cartel, who plan to use her to lure her brother, force her to accept Rick's protection.
Juliana wants no charmer like the men her mother keeps marrying, and Rick wants no strings. Although attraction sparks between them, they're at odds and their personalities are polar opposites, but they must work together. Their hunt for her brother and the cartel's Maine connection leads them into each other's arms and into deadly danger.
Entire Always a Suspect (Prequel), Never Surrender, Once Burned, Twice a Target
152 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 3, 2024
117 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Susan Vaughan
42 books91 followersI wanted to write as soon as I learned to read. I dabbled with stories and poems for years, but didn't start writing seriously until many years later. My favorite books have always been mysteries and romances, so the mix in romantic suspense was a natural. I love writing romantic suspense because it throws the hero and heroine together under extraordinary circumstances and pits them against a clever villain.
My books have been both a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Nominee and a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award. Reviewers have called my books fast-paced, thrilling, action-packed, sizzling, and highly emotional.
I have also published two children's picture storybooks, Sleigh Magic and Stowaways: a Maine Pirate Tale.
I am a West Virginia native but I have lived for many years on the coast of Maine.
For more information about my books, please visit me at www.susanvaughan.com or as Susan Vaughan, Author on FaceBook.
My books have been both a Romantic Times Magazine Reviewer’s Choice Nominee and a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award. Reviewers have called my books fast-paced, thrilling, action-packed, sizzling, and highly emotional.
I have also published two children's picture storybooks, Sleigh Magic and Stowaways: a Maine Pirate Tale.
I am a West Virginia native but I have lived for many years on the coast of Maine.
For more information about my books, please visit me at www.susanvaughan.com or as Susan Vaughan, Author on FaceBook.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
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May 22, 2020🎁 FREE on Amazon today (5/22/2020)! 🎁
July 14, 2014
Struggled with the Romance
There is nothing Juliana Paris wouldn't do to protect her younger brother, even if it means withholding information from the sexiest man she's ever seen, DEA Agent Ricardo Cruz. Juliana doesn't trust cops and the DEA is just another type of cop agency as far as she's concerned. If her brother is in trouble, and it looks like he definitely is, Juliana will find him and she'll keep him safe. Keep him free. Fix whatever it is he's done wrong this time.
Except this time, Juliana discovers, there are worse things than sexy DEA agents looking to imprison her brother on drug trafficking charges. There is a vicious drug cartel who think she's got something that would incriminate them, and they're coming for her hard. With her brother on the run and Agent Rick Cruz breathing down her neck, Juliana may need to rethink a few of her trust issues. Her life - and the life of her brother - may depend on it.
~*~
This book started out okay for me. It didn't break any new ground in the genre, the story as a whole is a bit too generic and lacking in complexity and the suspense plotline is a bit too predictable, but both Juliana and Rick had moments when they really shone as characters, and I enjoyed their contentious interplay in the first half of the book. They made that part of the ride worth the trip.
I liked the solid foundation of personal history that shaped each of them as characters. Rick's loss of his brother was the source of his zeal to stop the cartel and take down its evil leader and Juliana's overprotective fervor for her brother and the desperation that drives most of her actions was born out of her own childhood traumas. Those were nice, organic touches that helped define the characters and added a layer of believability.
That didn't necessarily make them consistently appealing, though. Rick was a bit of a dog, actually. He's a good looking guy who appreciates all women...especially the ones he can charm into bed. And he's very charming. Just ask him. I liked him most of the time, but have to admit, there were times when he came off rather shallow and manipulative with that charm of his.
Juliana frustrated me. I can't say I disliked her, exactly, but she seemed to have a stubborn resistance to anything resembling sense in the first half of the book and it made her seem very immature. I understood, even sympathized at times with her desire to keep her brother safe, but I can't say she went about it in the best ways. Unfortunately, my biggest problem with her - and the book - came at just past the halfway mark, when out of nowhere she suddenly realizes she's in love with Rick - the same guy she's been openly distrustful of and withholding evidence from at every turn up to that point...and beyond.
I'm all for a healthy bit of lusty good times, but her love for him at that point in the story was way too abrupt and lacking in necessary foundation for my taste. In fact, I think I got a little whiplash from the shocking about-face.
Still, I think I could have accepted that shocker and still mostly enjoyed the second half of the book if the romance had been handled better from that point. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Juliana and Rick worked better for me before they got together than it ever did after. The relationship-centric scenes suffered from stilted, awkward dialogue that made me cringe in places and what little sexuality was included stayed closer to tepid, child-friendly levels of description. For fans of the more circumspect sex scene this might be a big plus for the book, but that's not where my preferences lie.
Too many other things went wrong for me from there, too. The brother Juliana is trying to protect comes off as selfish and a bit stupid, the thugs causing most of the trouble never really seemed all that threatening to me, and the plot threads surrounding the leak in the DEA office and the identity of the cartel's American partner were so anemic they offered nothing of substance to the plot. Between that and Rick's team, who lacked the definition necessary to give them any impact on the story at all, far too many of the golden opportunities to broaden the scope of the story or better layer the plot went unexplored and unrealized.
Had the romance not put such a damper on the read for me, maybe I would have been more forgiving of the limited suspense plot. This isn't a long book, so I'm less of a stickler in that regard. I may not have loved it, but I wouldn't have ended up as dissatisfied as I was. Unfortunately, too much of my overall impression of the story is hampered by what was, to me, a sometimes painful and odd romance arc. There were good points to both the characters and the story in this book, but the bad outweighed them for me this time.
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for review. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.
~*~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
There is nothing Juliana Paris wouldn't do to protect her younger brother, even if it means withholding information from the sexiest man she's ever seen, DEA Agent Ricardo Cruz. Juliana doesn't trust cops and the DEA is just another type of cop agency as far as she's concerned. If her brother is in trouble, and it looks like he definitely is, Juliana will find him and she'll keep him safe. Keep him free. Fix whatever it is he's done wrong this time.
Except this time, Juliana discovers, there are worse things than sexy DEA agents looking to imprison her brother on drug trafficking charges. There is a vicious drug cartel who think she's got something that would incriminate them, and they're coming for her hard. With her brother on the run and Agent Rick Cruz breathing down her neck, Juliana may need to rethink a few of her trust issues. Her life - and the life of her brother - may depend on it.
~*~
This book started out okay for me. It didn't break any new ground in the genre, the story as a whole is a bit too generic and lacking in complexity and the suspense plotline is a bit too predictable, but both Juliana and Rick had moments when they really shone as characters, and I enjoyed their contentious interplay in the first half of the book. They made that part of the ride worth the trip.
I liked the solid foundation of personal history that shaped each of them as characters. Rick's loss of his brother was the source of his zeal to stop the cartel and take down its evil leader and Juliana's overprotective fervor for her brother and the desperation that drives most of her actions was born out of her own childhood traumas. Those were nice, organic touches that helped define the characters and added a layer of believability.
That didn't necessarily make them consistently appealing, though. Rick was a bit of a dog, actually. He's a good looking guy who appreciates all women...especially the ones he can charm into bed. And he's very charming. Just ask him. I liked him most of the time, but have to admit, there were times when he came off rather shallow and manipulative with that charm of his.
Juliana frustrated me. I can't say I disliked her, exactly, but she seemed to have a stubborn resistance to anything resembling sense in the first half of the book and it made her seem very immature. I understood, even sympathized at times with her desire to keep her brother safe, but I can't say she went about it in the best ways. Unfortunately, my biggest problem with her - and the book - came at just past the halfway mark, when out of nowhere she suddenly realizes she's in love with Rick - the same guy she's been openly distrustful of and withholding evidence from at every turn up to that point...and beyond.
I'm all for a healthy bit of lusty good times, but her love for him at that point in the story was way too abrupt and lacking in necessary foundation for my taste. In fact, I think I got a little whiplash from the shocking about-face.
Still, I think I could have accepted that shocker and still mostly enjoyed the second half of the book if the romance had been handled better from that point. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Juliana and Rick worked better for me before they got together than it ever did after. The relationship-centric scenes suffered from stilted, awkward dialogue that made me cringe in places and what little sexuality was included stayed closer to tepid, child-friendly levels of description. For fans of the more circumspect sex scene this might be a big plus for the book, but that's not where my preferences lie.
Too many other things went wrong for me from there, too. The brother Juliana is trying to protect comes off as selfish and a bit stupid, the thugs causing most of the trouble never really seemed all that threatening to me, and the plot threads surrounding the leak in the DEA office and the identity of the cartel's American partner were so anemic they offered nothing of substance to the plot. Between that and Rick's team, who lacked the definition necessary to give them any impact on the story at all, far too many of the golden opportunities to broaden the scope of the story or better layer the plot went unexplored and unrealized.
Had the romance not put such a damper on the read for me, maybe I would have been more forgiving of the limited suspense plot. This isn't a long book, so I'm less of a stickler in that regard. I may not have loved it, but I wouldn't have ended up as dissatisfied as I was. Unfortunately, too much of my overall impression of the story is hampered by what was, to me, a sometimes painful and odd romance arc. There were good points to both the characters and the story in this book, but the bad outweighed them for me this time.
Disclosure: A copy of this book was provided to me by the author for review. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.
~*~*~*~*~
Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.
February 15, 2020
Saving Her Sibling
He's a DEA agent who has made it his mission to always fight for the end of drugs. She's a big sister who has had problems with how the law decides things. Her brother is on the run and wanted for drug smuggling.
Lots of action with some awesome escape tactics. I struggled with the romance because it seemed pushed. Other than that it's a decent read~
He's a DEA agent who has made it his mission to always fight for the end of drugs. She's a big sister who has had problems with how the law decides things. Her brother is on the run and wanted for drug smuggling.
Lots of action with some awesome escape tactics. I struggled with the romance because it seemed pushed. Other than that it's a decent read~
February 5, 2014
I was given an ARC by the author for an honest review.
I am sad to admit I didn't really care for this book. It is pegged as "romantic suspense". It was ok on the suspense, and not at all good on the romance. In fact, this was a very "PG" rated book in terms of romance. Nothing steamy at all.
I honestly felt this book was a mess. It starts off with Rick Cruz looking for Jordan Paris, who is wanted for drug running. Rick is in the perps apartment and an intruder comes in and he takes the perp down. It turns out the perp is not a perp at all, but the perps sister. Rick is immediately attracted to the sister, whose name is Juliana Paris. Juliana is a "mother hen" sister to her younger brother and has a hard time believing her brother is a drug runner.
The "suspense" in this story was ok. The story was semi-believable. What was not believable was the romance between Rick and Juliana. It didn't move at a believable pace and their romance seemed very forced. And the sex scenes were from a Disney movie, kissing and a boob touch. It was so tame, especially after some of the books I've just read.
On the positive side, I really did like Rick. He was an interesting character, and I liked that he used Spanish lingo during the book. Juliana was semi-annoying, but I grew to like her more toward the end of this book. Overall, this book didn't flow well, and the best part was that it was short. Thank you to the author for the copy and I'm sorry my review couldn't be better.
I am sad to admit I didn't really care for this book. It is pegged as "romantic suspense". It was ok on the suspense, and not at all good on the romance. In fact, this was a very "PG" rated book in terms of romance. Nothing steamy at all.
I honestly felt this book was a mess. It starts off with Rick Cruz looking for Jordan Paris, who is wanted for drug running. Rick is in the perps apartment and an intruder comes in and he takes the perp down. It turns out the perp is not a perp at all, but the perps sister. Rick is immediately attracted to the sister, whose name is Juliana Paris. Juliana is a "mother hen" sister to her younger brother and has a hard time believing her brother is a drug runner.
The "suspense" in this story was ok. The story was semi-believable. What was not believable was the romance between Rick and Juliana. It didn't move at a believable pace and their romance seemed very forced. And the sex scenes were from a Disney movie, kissing and a boob touch. It was so tame, especially after some of the books I've just read.
On the positive side, I really did like Rick. He was an interesting character, and I liked that he used Spanish lingo during the book. Juliana was semi-annoying, but I grew to like her more toward the end of this book. Overall, this book didn't flow well, and the best part was that it was short. Thank you to the author for the copy and I'm sorry my review couldn't be better.
July 4, 2013
DEA agent Rick Cruz is part of a task force to stop the Mexican drug & gun smuggling in Maine. He's investigating the apartment of missing Jordan Paris who is assumed to be one of the cartel's mules. As he is leaving the apartment, someone walks in and they struggle. It turns out that this person is Juliana Paris, the sister.
Juliana has a distrust of all law enforcement and wants to protect her baby brother but that DEA agent sure is good looking. The DEA agent is mesmerized by Juliana. She's trying NOT to fall for Rick but he's charming her. Will they make it as a couple? What if she is harboring her brother? Could she be involved with the drug smuggling, too?
They both want to find Jordan to get to the truth of his drug smuggling activities. If Juliana helps the DEA, she would be helping them arrest her brother. Who will find Jordan first?
Cute story.
Juliana has a distrust of all law enforcement and wants to protect her baby brother but that DEA agent sure is good looking. The DEA agent is mesmerized by Juliana. She's trying NOT to fall for Rick but he's charming her. Will they make it as a couple? What if she is harboring her brother? Could she be involved with the drug smuggling, too?
They both want to find Jordan to get to the truth of his drug smuggling activities. If Juliana helps the DEA, she would be helping them arrest her brother. Who will find Jordan first?
Cute story.
July 27, 2014
Great Novella. I received a free copy of Never Surrender for my honest review. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy! Rick and Juliana keep the pace moving in Rick's story as they chase after a drug dealer and arms smuggler while trying to locate Juliana's brother. And of course you have the romantic attraction growing between them as the dodge bullets! It's a fast read since it Iike s a novella, but you get an honest feel for what the Task Force Federal agents are up against! Susan's love scenes (along with the rest of the book) are tastefully and very well written. If you haven't already read any of Susan's books, this is a good place to start! I can't wait to read Jake and Holt's stories!
June 30, 2013
DEA Agent Ricardo Cruz and the beautiful, quick-witted Juliana Paris find themselves thrown together when Juliana's brother becomes enmeshed in a drug-smuggling operation. Both Juliana and Rick fight their growing attraction and a host of personal demons to get to the truth and take down the bad guys before it's too late.
Never Surrender is a fast, sexy read that I finished in a night, and quickly bought the second in the series. This is romantic suspense at its best, with just enough conflict and character depth to make the tension between Rick and Juliana palpable and make the pages (and the sparks) fly. A definite recommendation for fans of the romantic action/suspense genre.
Never Surrender is a fast, sexy read that I finished in a night, and quickly bought the second in the series. This is romantic suspense at its best, with just enough conflict and character depth to make the tension between Rick and Juliana palpable and make the pages (and the sparks) fly. A definite recommendation for fans of the romantic action/suspense genre.
December 31, 2014
I couldn't put this book down. I kept going back to it to see how it would all turn out. After leaving a cryptic phone message, Juliana's brother, Jordan, has gone missing and Ricardo Cruz, former SEAL now DEA agent, knows why. He's on the trail of a drug smuggling business in Maine that uses the fishing industry for cover. Jordan was one of their drivers. But when the drug cartel targets Juliana to get info on Jordan's whereabouts, Cruz will risk whatever it takes to keep her safe while still getting his man. Lots of beautiful, rugged scenery, passion, and suspense!
June 22, 2013
A fast paced, tension filled read. Vaughan handles both the suspense and romance aspects deftly, and both main characters are likeable but complex. Will definitely read more in the series.
December 9, 2013
Good story but this author's style is just not for me. I find it hard to follow/not linear in thinking and some strange word choices. Others may love it.
January 13, 2014
good start to this series even if at times I wanted to smack Juliana
January 25, 2015
Great Book
I enjoyed reading this book. It has a lot of action and the main characters are very likable. I'm ready to start the next one!
I enjoyed reading this book. It has a lot of action and the main characters are very likable. I'm ready to start the next one!
February 12, 2018
Never Surrender review
Never Surrender is the second fast-paced romantic suspense book in the Task Force Eagle series written by author Susan Vaughan.
Never Surrender is the second fast-paced romantic suspense book in the Task Force Eagle series written by author Susan Vaughan.
June 4, 2019
Loved the story.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews