Reviewed by Valerie
TITLE: Reese
AUTHOR: Annabella Stone
SERIES: Tags of Honor: Red Squadron #6
PUBLISHER: Self Published
LENGTH: 265 pages
RELEASE DATE: May 28, 2022
BLURB:
There is never going to be enough whiskey to kill the burning desire for revenge in his soul.
Reese *Peanut* Wagner has spent most of his life fighting for Red Squadron and his adopted country. However, as the child of an illicit relationship between a Russian defector and an US Military Operator, he always felt he never quite deserved to be a member of the elite JSOC Task Force. As tensions rise across Eastern Europe, all intelligence point to his mother yet again changing sides. He must figure out what’s going on and he better do it fast. Compromising his chosen family is not an option, and betraying his country is never going to happen.
Johnny *Whiskey* Walker learned the hard way to trust only himself. Operators and their teams only consider the flag, their country, and following orders. The last time he followed orders he got burned by the CIA and now he’s running for his life from the agents sent to take him out. Rescue comes when he least expects it, from a knight in shining Kevlar disguised as a six-foot-six wall of muscles with a stubborn streak a mile wide and the sexiest freaking backside he’s ever had the pleasure to walk behind. But how can he trust someone who fights on the side which wishes him dead? Stupid is never going to be him his wheelhouse.
Sometimes jumping off a cliff requires trusting the one person you know you shouldn’t. Can these two war weary warriors find it within themselves to trust that when the battle stops, love really will conquer all?
REVIEW:
I like military romances, particularly those with special forces. I like all the characters in this series. But sadly, I do not like this book.
The editing is abhorrent. Punctuation in the wrong places, misspelled words, misused words, incorrect homophones and more. These weren’t typos but grammatical mistakes. Even the name of a character was misspelled. At times I didn’t know who was speaking. I have remarked on this problem in past reviews of Annabella Stone’s books, as have many other reviewers, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. I can’t understand why an author would ignore such important feedback and fail to hire an editor. Or at the very least, find a competent beta reader. It’s so distracting and I couldn’t get past it. It angered me.
Furthermore, the plot was illogical at times. The whole part regarding Reese’s mother wasn’t fleshed out enough to make sense. It was built up to be the central driver of the plot and then it just fell apart abruptly with very few details or explanations. It’s almost as if Stone changed her mind about this plotline part way through the book. I was left shaking my head numerous times because it seemed entire parts of the book must have been chopped out.
There were so many acronyms used (the author mistakenly called them anagrams) that weren’t defined: CSB, ARW, NVG, and others. I didn’t know what any of these referred to.
Reese and his love interest Johnny acted out of character with their insta-love. They were acting like besotted lovers, talking about forever together too soon to be consistent with their tough guy, alpha, black ops/CIA operative personas. Johnny’s sexual thoughts about Reese were so out of place in the beginning, obsessing over Reese’s ass while literally running for his life to escape the enemies.
As I said, I love the characters – the men of Red Squadron plus the inclusion of some of the guys from Team Panther – with their banter and camaraderie. It was great to see all the past faces. The action sequences with rescues and exfiltrations are always exciting, too. But it was just not enough for me to overlook the editing and plot hole issues. It’s a shame because I’ve really enjoyed many of Stone’s work in the past.
RATING: 
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