Reviewed by Dan
This is a Series Review of Mad Dog Series (Books 1 – 4)
AUTHOR: Brenda Cothern
PUBLISHER: Brenda Cothern Books, Inc.
SERIES REVIEW:
So, I requested to review this series, knowing absolutely nothing about it. I had read and loved a couple of Brenda’s other books and thought, hey, a nice military series. I guess I missed the werewolf piece! I’m sorry if that is a major spoiler, but it isn’t in the blurbs and I was super happy to find out it was a major part of the plot….Mad Dogs….get it? Check out my reviews on the separate books below. I highly recommend the series and know you will enjoy it if you’re into hot men in uniform, who are also werewolves, and who seem to REALLY like sex. 🙂
Continue below to see what I thought of each book. Spoiler….I like the newest one best!
SERIES RATING: 
TITLE: Sixth
LENGTH: 148 Pages
BLURB:
Brian Hay’s only dream in life was to be part of America’s elite, yet unacknowledged, Delta Force. After years of training to be the best the 75th Ranger Regiment had ever produced, his dream was finally coming true. But what starts out as what he thinks is a Delta hazing op soon turns into much more when Brian not only becomes a Delta Force soldier but a Mad Dog.
REVIEW:
Brian Hay’s isn’t that surprised to get called in to his commander’s office and told he his MOS has been changed and that he is being transferred to Delta Force. But from there, things get a tad bit odd.
When he arrives he is told that the current class is already in progress, but he will be waived for the first section because he is already the best sniper that the 75th Ranger Regiment has ever produced. But when he is assigned immediately to the Mad Dogs, without ANY training, something really feels off. The first thing that is off is that every one of the five members of that team view him with open hostility when he is taken to the barracks.
The Mad Dogs are a team of five individuals and always have been. Why would a sixth be added now? And why one with no Delta training at all?
Brian goes to sleep, and awakens with everyone piled on top of him on his bunk, tying him up, blindfolding him and putting a bag over his head. He assumes a standard military hazing, and knows whatever they do, they won’t kill him! The next thing he knows, he is in a hummer, laying across the laps of three men, still blindfolded, with his wrists and ankles secured. But why do all three guys have raging boners pressed into his side? Is everyone in this team gay? Brian is a heterosexual and has never even considered sex with a man. He has to find a way to escape before they force themselves on him!
There starts an ordeal in the woods. Brian awakens alone, with his clothes, boots, compass and instructions and has to find his way to three separate spots to pass the “test”. Only problem, where did all these damn wolves come from? And where are his team mates?
RATING: 4.5 Stars
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TITLE: Deployed
LENGTH: 183 Pages
BLURB:
Four geological scientists go missing in the Swiss Alp’s when they apparently wander into Arimaspi territory. It is up to the Mad Dogs to retrieve them because the whole situation stinks of the Organization.
However, it’s not Organization Operatives the Mad Dogs encounter but instead the Watcher who is obsessed with the Unit, especially its newest member.
REVIEW:
Before Brian Hays’s hazing is even over, they are called back to base and deployed to Switzerland to rescue 4 scientists that have disappeared. Brian quickly learns that werewolves aren’t the only supernatural beings on the planet!
The scientists have been captured by the Arimaspi, a race of giant one eyed, sharp toothed creatures that eat their own dead, animals, humans, or basically whatever they can get their hands on. Things don’t look good for the safety of the scientists, but the Mad Dogs team is sent in to try to rescue them.
Along the way Brian’s bond with his mate increases, and Brian also has sex with most of the other team members in order to create his bond. I really would have liked to see more details of those sessions! For example when he is off with Doc, and then comes back, H mentions Doc’s huge dick. But we got no details! Unfair Ms. Cothern, just plain unfair!
No more spoilers, but along the way on this installment, Brian meets a vampire, fights the one eyed giants and develops more and more of his werewolf abilities.
RATING: 4.0 Stars
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TITLE: Extraction
LENGTH: 231 Pages
BLURB:
Routine training for the Mad Dogs turns out to be anything but routine for Brian Hay. Finally bonded to the rest of the pack, there is only one last step to make him an official Mad Dog: meet the Council representatives.
What should have been standard operating procedure between the Mad Dogs and the Council turns into a mission like none other they had been sent on before… to save Markus and Brian.
REVIEW:
The team is back from Switzerland and recovering from their ordeal by doing some training in the woods of North Carolina. At a remote location, Brian and the rest of the guys are doing some intense training. Too intense for a normal human. Because Brian is still “converting” as it were, he is more exhausted than the rest of the team.
Now it is time for him to meet the representatives of the council. One, Rolex, is a former Mad Dog, and of course still a werewolf, the other is this total bitch named Shanna who despises the werewolves and doesn’t understand why they are part of the Order forces at all.
During the interview with the council, both Brian and Marcus are interviewed by both Rolex and Shanna. Because of the third form that Marcus displayed in book two, the council is very interested in learning what the limits are of that new form.
Before anyone knows what is going on, Shanna has drugged both men and smuggled them out of the training facility and away to a hidden, undisclosed area. This is not something the rest of the team, including Rolex and McCormick knew anything about.
The race is on to find the two men, before the evil Shanna can injure them permanently, or even kill them. Along the way we run into Duke, the inquisitive vampire from book 2, as well as a particularly stinky female necromancer. Will the team get there to rescue the guys before Shanna does more than just torture them? What about this shadowy “Organization” which we don’t know much about, but who are the other side? (I’m thinking of the Chaos/Control relationship on the old television show “Get Smart”, and showing my age…LOL)
RATING: 4.5 Stars
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TITLE: R&R
LENGTH: 189 Pages
BLURB:
After rescuing Markus and Brian from the clutches of the sadistic Councilwoman, Shanna Crystal, the Mad Dogs are forced on R & R. None of them are happy and none of them want or need ‘rest & relaxation’ but they have no choice.
The campground, Dad T’s, is a gay soldier’s wet dream for R & R but the Dogs barely have a chance to enjoy all it offers when everything they know about the supernaturals that inhabit the world is turned upside-down.
A leisurely run in the Ocala National Forest turns their R & R into a mission. A mission that almost takes out the Delta Unit. Permanently.
REVIEW:
Whoa. Things just went to the next level!
The Mad Dogs have been ordered to take R&R at a place called Dad T’s Campground, just outside the Ocala National Forest in Florida. They are thinking “What the Hell?” Not only are they being forced to take R&R, but told specifically where to go for it! After driving for hours from North Carolina, they get to the road to the place, but it is a pothole filled old road that tests the limits even of their SUV. Then they come to a gate with a keypad. Only problem “Cordick” never told them the code and the robotic woman’s voice doesn’t give any other options. Finally after Oh has a meltdown, a man comes on laughing on the intercom and opens the gate for them.
They find themselves in a place I wish existed when I was gay and in the military! A gay military guy’s dream campground. Nice log cabins, a beach wave pool, restaurants, bars, and lots of super-hot men running around, some completely naked.
The guys get up to some “group activities” with a young Marine, who once again proves that the old saying we used to use when I was in the Navy is still true…”All Marines ARE bottoms.” 😉
But are they really on R&R? Something seems to shout Ops at them. They keep up their daily training to see what will happen. Along with the training they also have a little fun in other ways. For example, we have a capture the flag game, where you can “kill” your enemy with paint balls, or “capture” your enemy and use them for sex. Sounds kind of fun, doesn’t it!
Then the story takes some twists. The Mad Dogs find out they aren’t the only shifters out there! When Doc and one of the two shifters they met in the woods are captured by the evil Shanna (yes the bitch is back) and her minions, the Mad Dogs find out just how unenlightened about the real supernatural world they are. Along the way we have warlocks, a fallen Angel, a new vampire, and a host of unnatural monsters spewing through this gateway to somewhere else!
I loved this new broadening of the series. Now I have to wait for the next one to come out. Hopefully Ms. Cothern you are hard at work on it already!
RATING: 5.0 Stars
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