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Dead Series #2
Dead Promise
New York City becomes ground zero for a bioterrorism attack when a weaponized strain of avian influenza is released into the city subway. The result is devastating—a deadly pandemic that threatens to tank the US economy.
Evidence leads FBI agents Georgiana Reed and Mark Strickland to a government research lab and a beautiful scientist, Dr. Suzy Chen. She had access. She had motive. And she had a secret connection to a group known only as the Organization and its sinister Director, who were operating to bring down the US economy.
When Chen’s love affair with a high-ranking military officer puts the Organization at risk, she is assassinated.
As Reed and Strickland draw closer to discovering the Director’s identity, they struggle to hide the love affair they began in Dead Love. Now is not the time for emotional entanglements, but passion has a way of sabotaging duty.
Chen’s grieving lover, Colonel Maxwell Graham, joins forces with Agents Reed and Strickland to hunt down the mysterious Director. Can they stop the Organization’s twisted plot to destroy the United States?
The government tries desperately to stem the chaos of the deadly pandemic. But is it too late?
339 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2017
9 people are currently reading
817 people want to read
About the author
Linda Wells
4 books467 followersLinda Wells grew up in Florida and attended the University of South Florida in Tampa. After college, she went on to travel the world as a flight attendant. Like the heroine in her latest novel, Midnight Beach, Linda loves reading mysteries under a beach umbrella and swimming beyond the breakers. She also loves writing mysteries set in her treasured home state of Florida.
Now living in the Midwest, her dreams to launch a writing career finally took flight. Wells is the author of four thrillers: Dead Love, Dead Promise, Cypress Lake, and Midnight Beach. She is hard at work on her fifth.
Linda belongs to several writers' organizations, including Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Find out more by visiting Linda at lindawellsbooks.com.
Now living in the Midwest, her dreams to launch a writing career finally took flight. Wells is the author of four thrillers: Dead Love, Dead Promise, Cypress Lake, and Midnight Beach. She is hard at work on her fifth.
Linda belongs to several writers' organizations, including Romance Writers of America and Sisters in Crime. Find out more by visiting Linda at lindawellsbooks.com.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
July 28, 2024
"The U.S. struggles to fight a pandemic—with viral outbreaks in three major cities—while agencies search for the mastermind behind the biological assault in this sequel.
Wells’ (Dead Love, 2013) latest novel picks up right where her preceding book left off. She adeptly eases her audience into the story, reintroducing characters with minimal exposition or recapping, and even readers just joining the series shouldn’t be lost. The no-frills narrative complements the short chapters, providing the tale with a brisk pace, especially considering that it began in the midst of the action. There’s a definite resolution—a couple of crucial deaths cap off some of the storylines—but plenty of lingering questions remain, enough for the series’ third entry.
A conventional thriller elevated by the author’s masterly juggling of characters and subplots." -Kirkus Reviews
Wells’ (Dead Love, 2013) latest novel picks up right where her preceding book left off. She adeptly eases her audience into the story, reintroducing characters with minimal exposition or recapping, and even readers just joining the series shouldn’t be lost. The no-frills narrative complements the short chapters, providing the tale with a brisk pace, especially considering that it began in the midst of the action. There’s a definite resolution—a couple of crucial deaths cap off some of the storylines—but plenty of lingering questions remain, enough for the series’ third entry.
A conventional thriller elevated by the author’s masterly juggling of characters and subplots." -Kirkus Reviews
August 4, 2024
A terrorist group initiates a pandemic with a weaponized virus planted in the NYC subway. The FBI agents who are investigating continue the love affair they began in Dead Love. Although this is a sequel, you don't need to read the first in the series, Dead Love, to enjoy this book.
The twists and turns of this international thriller will keep you wanting to read more. I loved the characters, the romance, and the surprise ending. The fast paced story is well written and carefully plotted to hold your attention. Overall, very entertaining.
The twists and turns of this international thriller will keep you wanting to read more. I loved the characters, the romance, and the surprise ending. The fast paced story is well written and carefully plotted to hold your attention. Overall, very entertaining.
December 9, 2017
Dead Promise is an engrossing, well-crafted story, and a sequel that picks up seamlessly from Wells' first book, Dead Love. There are pockets of vignettes with flesh and blood characters who are struggling physically and emotionally as a deadly virus spreads through the world. The source of the virus is a conflicted woman who initiates this threat as an act of love rather than an act of terror. I look forward to Wells' third novel. Her writing is sharp, poignant and on-point; and her characters are three- if not four-dimensional. She has the ability to slowly untangle a mystery and involve you deeply in the characters while everyone in the book, including the reader, is seeking sanctuary, resolution, reconciliation and closure.
July 27, 2024
I was immediately drawn into this standalone thriller about a terrorist who unleashes a bio-weapon in the NYC subway and the ensuing pandemic. The story is brisk, short fast paced chapters, with compelling characters that add depth to this international thriller. Although a sequel, you don't have to read the first in the series to enjoy the book.
The author picks up seamlessly from Dead Love, and the you won't be able to stop reading until the surprise ending. An intriguing suspense thriller.
The author picks up seamlessly from Dead Love, and the you won't be able to stop reading until the surprise ending. An intriguing suspense thriller.
October 22, 2018
I left it a while before reviewing this book, hoping a little delay would warm my feelings about it, but sadly I can't go above 2 stars.
I really wanted to like the book. It is a very brave and very difficult thing to go into writing after a career doing something completely different, and I hope Linda Wells has a long and successful career as an author, but sadly this book, for me, leaves a lot to be desired.
The premise and plot are really good and scarily plausible. A bio-terrorist attack, an invisible enemy as it were, and a race against time to halt it. Not entirely original, maybe, but well delivered all the same.
There are two areas where the book falls short in my opinion. One is the characters. Well, there are simply far too many of them. It gets confusing and many of them have no real impact on the plot, some just disappearing completely from the story at some point, others being peripheral throughout and adding no value to the story whatsoever. Other than adding yet more love / sex scenes, the air crew character set and most of the hospital character set are completely superfluous. Because there are too many characters, few of them have any significant depth, meaning you have little empathy with even the major characters.
Second is the writing itself. The best writers leave us to fill in the spaces, to draw our own conclusions, and to use our imagination to add detail, but unfortunately the writing here (across both books in fact, as they are definitely part 1 & 2 of the story rather than two of a series), is highly repetitive and too literal in places. We have to read about various characters, for example, watching a news bulletin which tells us what we have already read a few pages previously. And we are told over and over again how this person or that person feels about a particular situation. I feel the author is trying too hard to impress the plot and the characters upon us instead of having faith in her writing and in us as readers to "get it". More naïve writing than bad writing, but it did border on tedious at times, and it is testament to how much I wanted to like the book that I made it through, as I came very close to giving up several times.
My final gripe is the ending which is all something of an anti-climax. The twist as to who was responsible was clever (if a little far-fetched in some ways) but then the resolution was rather disappointing and over in a couple of pages.
I hope Ms Wells perseveres and has great success, but I think this book is not it. Rather it is a step along the way, a learning curve towards developing a style of writing to go with the clever imagination of an aspiring author.
I really wanted to like the book. It is a very brave and very difficult thing to go into writing after a career doing something completely different, and I hope Linda Wells has a long and successful career as an author, but sadly this book, for me, leaves a lot to be desired.
The premise and plot are really good and scarily plausible. A bio-terrorist attack, an invisible enemy as it were, and a race against time to halt it. Not entirely original, maybe, but well delivered all the same.
There are two areas where the book falls short in my opinion. One is the characters. Well, there are simply far too many of them. It gets confusing and many of them have no real impact on the plot, some just disappearing completely from the story at some point, others being peripheral throughout and adding no value to the story whatsoever. Other than adding yet more love / sex scenes, the air crew character set and most of the hospital character set are completely superfluous. Because there are too many characters, few of them have any significant depth, meaning you have little empathy with even the major characters.
Second is the writing itself. The best writers leave us to fill in the spaces, to draw our own conclusions, and to use our imagination to add detail, but unfortunately the writing here (across both books in fact, as they are definitely part 1 & 2 of the story rather than two of a series), is highly repetitive and too literal in places. We have to read about various characters, for example, watching a news bulletin which tells us what we have already read a few pages previously. And we are told over and over again how this person or that person feels about a particular situation. I feel the author is trying too hard to impress the plot and the characters upon us instead of having faith in her writing and in us as readers to "get it". More naïve writing than bad writing, but it did border on tedious at times, and it is testament to how much I wanted to like the book that I made it through, as I came very close to giving up several times.
My final gripe is the ending which is all something of an anti-climax. The twist as to who was responsible was clever (if a little far-fetched in some ways) but then the resolution was rather disappointing and over in a couple of pages.
I hope Ms Wells perseveres and has great success, but I think this book is not it. Rather it is a step along the way, a learning curve towards developing a style of writing to go with the clever imagination of an aspiring author.
June 25, 2018
Amazing
Such a great book. Scary and intense at times. I would recommend this book if you like suspenseful books. Loved it!
Such a great book. Scary and intense at times. I would recommend this book if you like suspenseful books. Loved it!
January 12, 2018
A FANTASTIC BOOK! I can't wait to read her first book, DEAD LOVE, and anything else Ms. Wells might be working on in the future. Keep up the great work.
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August 24, 2018
Only a three star read for me because although it had a fairly good plot it just was difficult to really get in touch with the characters since there is just so many from so many narratives that I had to use kindle app notes to keep track. Idk it just didn’t really seem too much like a mystery or thriller to me at all. Usually there’s some build up to the climax of a mystery but this plot didn’t really have a climatic point at all. There’s a lot of speculation by the characters as to who was the suspect that released this highly dangerous, mutating, virus but readers pretty knew from the first few chapters who the culprit was. I like books that keep u “on your toes” so to speak and this just wasn’t like that for me at all. Not a terrible read but definitely wouldn’t read the first book in the series since it would just be redundant to me I think. Overall, only somewhat entertaining and glad it was short lol
January 4, 2021
I really, really enjoyed this book! It ranks up there with some of the best mystery novels I've read. I thought Cypress Lake was good, but this book was a real step up in story content and intrigue. I have to say that I honestly cannot wait for Ms. Wells next novel. This was really good!
April 22, 2019
A terrorist attack who-done-it with romance scattered in
This book was intriguing enough - a virus is released and the authorities have to figure out who did it and why. I was anxious to know what would happen and be uncovered.
Various chapters were narrated from the perspectives of varying characters, which gave a nice perspective of all of the different pieces of the puzzle but was also often confusing. Many of the characters' focuses were on romantic affairs rather than the plot, which seemed extraneous. Some of the characters appeared once or twice and then never returned, and that made the story telling seem fragmented.
There was not much action, unlike many other books in this genre, but I didn't find myself necessarily wanting more. Then again, there didn't seem to be much of a climax. The mystery was slowly but surely solved and then it was over, without any excitement or unexpected reveals.
Worth the read for people who like the genre and reading about relationships between people.
This book was intriguing enough - a virus is released and the authorities have to figure out who did it and why. I was anxious to know what would happen and be uncovered.
Various chapters were narrated from the perspectives of varying characters, which gave a nice perspective of all of the different pieces of the puzzle but was also often confusing. Many of the characters' focuses were on romantic affairs rather than the plot, which seemed extraneous. Some of the characters appeared once or twice and then never returned, and that made the story telling seem fragmented.
There was not much action, unlike many other books in this genre, but I didn't find myself necessarily wanting more. Then again, there didn't seem to be much of a climax. The mystery was slowly but surely solved and then it was over, without any excitement or unexpected reveals.
Worth the read for people who like the genre and reading about relationships between people.
July 1, 2018
I won this book in a giveaway. I read the first book in the series prior to reading this one and was not all that impressed, but I feel like this book represents a significant improvement in writing quality.
As far as the story goes, this book continues from the first and isn't really standalone. For that reason I'm glad I started with the first book. That being said, this one is more of the same, a mystery/thriller with fortuitous romantic scenes wandering in now and then. Those scenes weren't as forced as in the first book, but still felt a little overdone. I appreciate the attempt to cross genre boundaries, and it wasn't as bad in this case as in the first book.
The writing itself feels a lot more natural this time, with dialog that helps the characters feel more real. I was able to focus more on the story rather than on the writing this time. Certainly a good sign. If only there were some real resolution. I'm not sure whether to expect another book in this series or not.
As far as the story goes, this book continues from the first and isn't really standalone. For that reason I'm glad I started with the first book. That being said, this one is more of the same, a mystery/thriller with fortuitous romantic scenes wandering in now and then. Those scenes weren't as forced as in the first book, but still felt a little overdone. I appreciate the attempt to cross genre boundaries, and it wasn't as bad in this case as in the first book.
The writing itself feels a lot more natural this time, with dialog that helps the characters feel more real. I was able to focus more on the story rather than on the writing this time. Certainly a good sign. If only there were some real resolution. I'm not sure whether to expect another book in this series or not.
July 24, 2018
A bio terrorist releases a bomb that releases a mutated flu virus on a crowded New York subway platform. The person who developed the virus is quickly found. Questions as to why the scientist would develop and release such a weapon are the bigger question. How far would you go to protect your family?
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews