03 February 2012

Forged In Fire - Trish McCallan

Summary: Beth Brown doesn't believe in premonitions until she dreams a sexy stranger is gunned down during the brutal hijacking of a commercial airliner. When events in her dream start coming true, she heads to the flight's departure gate. To her shock, she recognizes the man she'd watched die the night before.
Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters comes from a bloodline of elite warriors with psychic abilities. When Zane and two of his platoon buddies arrive at Sea-Tac Airport, he has a vision of his teammates' corpses. Then she arrives—a leggy blonde who sets off a different kind of alarm.
As Beth teams up with Zane, they discover the hijacking is the first step in a secret cartel's deadly global agenda and that key personnel within the FBI are compromised. To survive the forces mobilizing against them, Beth will need to open herself to a psychic connection with the sexy SEAL who claims to be her soul mate. (Source: Trish McCallan website)

Comments: I tend to like paranormal traits in my books in very small, perhaps believable ways, most notably with Hannah Howell's Wherlocke/Vaughn Series and this story fits that same sensibility. Could someone dream about something that could happen - sure. Could you communicate on some level with someone you were close to? Sure - happens all the time with me and MotH* - we say the exact same thing at the exact same time. Could a guy believe in soul mates? Well, that one I'm not so sure about.
I find the timing of the book impressive. Most of it takes place in about twelve hours (I didn't time it, but it's half a day or so) and that's pretty neat, at least to me. The friendship and brotherhood of Zane, Rawls, and Cosky is believable as is the language. Those boys know how to cuss - that's for sure, but that doesn't bother me. I can cuss like a sailor too. One of the things I like the most is that people don't keep secrets and if someone tries to, their friends tend to know and call them on it. Zane's supervisor is his best friend Jace Mackenzie and he calls Zane on lying when he tries to lie about Beth's dream. It's a good plan to me, so many stories do the whole not telling people what's going on as the way to make the story move along. I thought this was refreshing. Mac's attitude towards women is intense - he does not trust them and thinks Beth is leading Zane down the wrong road, but thankfully, Beth is tough enough to handle him. He'll met his match, I'm sure. Beth, understandably does not believe in the whole soul mate thing when it's dumped into her lap, but I can't say I blame her, especially coming from a guy.
The story was fast paced. I read it in just over a few hours and  enjoyed it. Although I realized it was setting up a second book fairly early on, but that didn't bother me. I also liked that we got an understanding of why the bad guy was a bad guy - not that made him good, but it was, again, refreshing.
What did bother me was the way it just sort of ended. Like that, it was over. I did not like that. I would have preferred something a little less sudden.
I am looking forward to the next book in the series which I hope will give some idea of what happens to Zane et al.



*Man of the House

02 February 2012

Groundhog Day

One of my favorite days of the year and only really for one reason...


31 January 2012

January on the Gulf Coast

You know you're on the gulf coast when it's January and you are running your a/c in the car on the way home from work at 7:00pm.