Reset to Zero

by Arden Powell

Agent Azzerare and the black market criminal known as Vulpe meet once a year every holiday season to collaborate on certain secret missions. Azzerare is less than enthusiastic when Management first suggests it; Vulpe is amoral, self-serving, and criminally inclined—everything Azzerare stands against. But as the years pass and the missions continue, Azzerare sees a new side of Vulpe: someone loyal, clever, and willing to risk his life to save Azzerare’s. Azzerare must decide how he feels about his partner—and if it’s love, he has to ask himself whether he’s willing to risk his career to pursue it, because an emotionally compromised agent is a dead one in Management’s eyes.

Genres: M M Romance, Romance, LGBT, Holiday

79 pages, ebook

First published December 11, 2017

About the author

Arden Powell (they/them) is a Canadian author and illustrator with stories in Lightspeed Magazine, Baffling Magazine, and Haunt Publishing, and whose books include The Faerie Hounds of York, The Bayou, the Flos Magicae series, and their short story collection, The Carnelian King and Other Stories. A nebulous entity, they live with a senior rescue hound and an exorbitant number of houseplants, and enjoy the company of both.

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Reviews

[M. Arbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was delightful. Powell pulls off a witty, almost heartwarming holiday romance about an assassin and a criminal (and it's barely violent at all). A fun and satisfying read.

[Jason]

Romance with suspense and action! An assassin and a criminal. How can it get any better? You have two sides of the law in a sense and Powell has worked it so well. A page turner from the very first page! Simply satisfying that I didn't want it to end. I love stories set in holiday settings and this one delivered on that beautifully! A must add to anyone's holiday reading collection as well as suspense/action as well! 5 Stars!

[Karen Rós · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is EXACTLY the kind of secret agent/criminal romance I've been looking for for ages! Slow burn, super sweet, witty, and delightful all around. My only complaint is that it's too short - I would've happily read a five book series about these two. (Also, it says holiday romance but it's the middle of July right now and it made no difference to me. Great if you want a Christmassy thing, can be ignored if you don't.)

[Valentine Wheeler · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was super sweet, and a really neat idea!

[Brittanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun, quick read with a cute HEA ending. If you like spy vs. spy (or spy vs. criminal) tropes, you'll love this. There isn't really any violence but there are some serious and dramatic parts sprinkled in the relationship developing over a single meeting each year between the two characters.

[Jan VL · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reset to Zero is a short story about the relationship between an agent and a black market criminal. The way it was written is unlike the usual enemy-to-lovers stories. The story starts off in the present with a vague sense of where the MCs are at in their relationship. It then jumps back to when they met about 10 years earlier to release snippets of their interaction together of the years, leading up to the present.

I actually wished the story was longer because I think I would’ve liked it a lot more if their interactions were more in detail and a lot longer. Because we only get to see a few snippets, I wasn’t able to feel their connection quite well. I only believed they felt more for each other near the end. I guess for a short story it was a good story, but I think the author could make it into a complete novel with their missions explained in detail as well, and lots of action and mystery included. I did love the ending though, which was not really a surprise, but it was a sort twist, which was a nice way to end their story.

Apart from a collaboration on The Naughty Little Book of Gaelic, Reset to Zero is the author’s first story. With that in mind, I have to say that it was pretty well written. I definitely look forward to reading more of this author’s books if they decide to publish more.

ARC provided by NineStar Press in exchange for an honest review.
Reviewed by Janet from Alpha Book Club