Review: Act of Command by Mandy M. Roth

Reviewer's Rating: 4

4.0Overall score

Well worth a second read.

Act of Command By Mandy M. Roth

Paranormal Military Special Ops Romance

Released February 29, 2016

The Raven Books

Series: PSI-Ops, Book 4

Synopsis

Captain Corbin Jones heads his own Paranormal Security and Intelligence Agency Special Ops team. He’s used to being in command. Used to having to make the tough calls. As a lion shifter, he’s no stranger to fighting his primal instincts. He’s had them well in hand for most of his immortally long life—that is, until he catches a scent that sets his body on fire.

The scent of his mate.

Mae wasn’t looking for love and certainly didn’t want to go on a blind date. When she’s stood up and grabbed instead by madmen who want to use her to breed other supernaturals, she’s not sure who to trust. Not even when the very same man she’s been fantasizing about is deposited next to her. Fate—and her own supernatural hormones—won’t be denied, and she finds she can’t control the desire burning through her. The only problem is, her fantasy man, the very man who came to rescue her, is now a prisoner too.

Review

Reviewed by Jean

Well worth a second reading

Fair warning people… I am notoriously bad at remembering names. This is true of real life people let alone characters in books. So, I’ll be honest with you all. This little memory issue has nothing at all to do with whether or not I actually remember a person or the characters in a book. I’ve looked at someone I have known for many, many years and totally spaced their names. Talk about embarrassing, but such are the vagaries of age and disability. Now, on the other hand, put a synopsis in front of me and the plot and storyline come rolling back in blazing colors. So, some of you may be asking what the heck this has to do with the price of tea in China or Act of Command, as the case might be. The reality is I read the book a bit over a week ago and got so busy with life and catching up with posts on the site, I was unable to write my review right away. So, rather than just look at the synopsis and wing it from faulty memory, I decided to relisten to the story. Let me tell you it was just as good the second time through as it was the first.

Act of Command is the fourth para-military romance in the Psi-Ops series. The Psi-Ops series, in turn, is a spin-off of the Immortal Ops series by Ms. Roth. I have yet to read all the books in the two series. Those that I have read have been excellent. I totally love the blend of paranormal shifters, fae and the like with the romantic suspense inherent with para-military romances. Ms. Roth is quite talented at tales with this blend of romance, passion, danger and intrigue in whatever length format she chooses to write.

The Psi-Ops series arc has the team of paranorms up against an organization that had been capturing, experimenting on and breeding people of different origins. Needless to say, they aren’t willing participants. At the same time, you have other groups jumping into the slave trade market. In this particular tale, Corbin Jones is the commander of an elite group assigned to recover paranorms and shut down the organization behind it all.

Corbin is a lion shifter that has unparalleled control of his animal which makes him perfect for command. He’s not a youngster and that means he’s been at this game for many a year. But it doesn’t matter how old you get to be, parents always see you as their baby and have a tendency to butt in with their adages on how you should live and who you should marry. Like a repeating cycle, it’s Corbin’s time to once again deal with a mother who is set on finding him a mate and getting herself some grandbabies. Corbin isn’t so much opposed to finding his mate as he is to the choices his mother has come up with in the past. So, you’ll have to excuse him if he isn’t all enthusiastic at her latest attempt to match him up on a blind date. He’s crossing campus to meet his date thinking how fortuitous a call from his team would at the moment so that he could avoid the date when he scents the most divine woman… then he sees her. Now, what’s he to do? This couldn’t possibly be his date. Well, he doesn’t have a chance to find out because think it and it happens… he gets called in to do an extraction and has to cancel his date with a quick message. Out of sight, out of mind would be a nice adage if Corbin wasn’t left with the lingering memory of her scent.

May is an art major in college. She was adopted as an infant by a paranormal couple and has no real knowledge of her heritage. The one thing she does know is that her tendency to sing has a disastrous effect on the human male. She rooms with her best friend, a succubus. So while May steers clear of the male gender, her roommate is the extreme opposite. Now May’s folks have asked her to go on a blind date with their friend’s son. Note, this is after sharing a picture of her sculpture with said male’s mother. May has no clue that she has sculpted the very image of Corbin… nude and to the most exacting likeness including his very prominent attributes. Then said male stand her up. Were that not bad enough she is kidnapped by nefarious paranorms with the intent of breeding and selling her.

To tell you more would be to spoil the plot. Needless to say, you have a dangerous situation and a rescue to attempt. The connection between Corbin and May is instant and overwhelming. It’s also damned hot. I really enjoyed Corbin and May as well as all the secondary characters. I’m looking forward to picking up the rest of the series and those that come after this one. If you like danger and action with your paranormal romance then this series will definitely strike a chord.