Her Mercenary by Amanda McKinney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The bestselling and award-winning Steele Shadows series continues in this new Protector Romance spin-off series, packed with page-turning mystery, steamy angst, exotic locations, and four dangerously attractive mercenaries.

She was supposed to be the mission. She became his undoing.

When American schoolteacher Samantha Greene goes missing in Mexico, the US government calls on private military firm, Astor Stone Inc., to assist in finding her. Former soldier Roman Thieves volunteers for the case, seizing the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. After-all, no one knows the dark underworld of human trafficking like he does—or knows exactly how involved he is in their business dealings.

When the mission falls apart, Roman finds himself on the run with the blonde-haired, green-eyed bombshell, seeking refuge in the untamed wilderness of the Sierra Madre Mountains—on a trail rumored to be haunted, nonetheless. With only a small bag of provisions, they must battle the elements, including scorching hot temperatures, and work together to outsmart the savage predators hunting them.

As his motives become clouded by a fierce need to protect Sam, Roman must choose between avenging his past and saving the woman who snuck her way into his heart.

Her Mercenary

Thriller romance!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚🖤
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏🌍
Character development: ☺️😊🙃
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Samantha – she was an elementary school teacher who loved her life, loved her students and loved her mother. While on vacation in Mexico, she was taken by human traffickers and spent weeks in a dirty cell in a basement of a small house. Though she wasn’t raped, she had to sit and listen to other women getting raped over and over. She saw children brought in and her captors cut off her pinkie finger. Though she kept her spirits up since she was a beautiful, blonde, American woman and being kept for something more than many of the other captives.

The Hero: Roman – he grew up extremely poor in Dublin, Ireland. His mother was forced to be a prostititue, and she was murdered in front of Roman by two well dressed men. He killed one of the men and promised himself that he would one day get revenge against the other man. Meanwhile he went to the states, joined the special forces, and ended up becoming a mercenary and assassin for a private security firm who got contracts from the U.S. government. He later killed that man, but his son Connor had taken over and expanded his business to become a global network of human trafficking. Roman started to infiltrate the group, planning to get his revenge through the son. He certainly deserved to die.

The story: Roman got a job from the government to rescue Samantha, they had intel that she was being saved to be the slave, or wife of Connor himself and she had spent time with Connor and might know where he kept the flash drive that had all the information to bring down his global network of human traffickers. Though the government cancelled the contract when they got word that Samantha had been murdered. Roman didn’t want to give up on his revenge, and left his job to go rescue Sam and take down Connor.

This book was good in ways but bothered me in others. The information about human trafficking given by Roman at the beginning of the book via his inner monologue was so thorough. I learned things I never thought of, and it is so hard to believe that in this day and age such brutality, cruelty and disregard for life still happens. Much worse that human trafficking is so lucrative a trade. There are just so many morally decrepit people in this world to kidnap and sell women and children as sex slaves, organ donors, baby factories, and the fact that wealthy people all over the world are willing to buy them or buy time with them. It just makes you sick to think of how many people are involved in this trade in one way or another.

The main plot and storyline of Roman and Samantha’s escape was particularly good. Though I did not like some of the dialogue, some of the conversations between the two main characters seemed immature and forced. Also, it was insta-love, they were trudging through the jungle for only a day or two before Samantha was declaring her love for Roman. Roman had been interest in Sam as a woman since he first read the dossier on her and did more research on his own. So, it wasn’t surprising that they fell into bed together, I just think they fell in love kind of fast.

This audiobook was told in two points of view via duet narration and was narrated by Alan Carlson and Amy Duechler. I hadn’t heard either of the narrators before. Amy Duechler has a bit of a deep voice for a female, though it is soft and intelligent sounding. Her male voice wasn’t too bad, which is a plus since it was dual narration. Alan Carlson did well with the Irish accent and though he wasn’t one of my favorite male narrators, he did a fine job.

Blog|Goodreads|Facebook|Instagram|Twitter|BookBub


View all my reviews