A Pair of e-book Thrillers

Two thrillers to review here, both e-book freebies. First up we have No Shelter by Robert Smartwood, the first in the Holly Lin/Nova Bartkowski series of thrillers.

Holly Lin is a US Government paid assassin who mainly works with Nova Bartkowski, with some of the books in the series featuring Holly as the main character and others featuring Nova. This book, as I said earlier, the first in the series features Holly Lin infiltrating a heavily guarded party in a top hotel in Las Vegas. Her aim is the kill the arms dealer and leave with a pendrive that he keeps on a chain around his  neck. It is implied that the pendrive contains details of how to hack into the US nuclear warheads and set them off.

The book  starts off at a frantic pace with fist fights, gun fights and car chases, before going off on a tangent to rescue a group of sex trafficked Mexicans. This doesn’t end well. There are some obvious plot holes, and Holly’s former lover and her father, both of whom she thought were dead, are actually still alive but working for the bad guys. A plot device that must be as old as the hills.

The ending of the book, while again very frantic, is slightly unbelievable. Why would the US Government place the highly dangerous pendrive onto a truck only guarded by two men. I gave the book 4 out of 5 on Goodreads,  but on reflection that was a little generous and 3 is probably fairer. Would I buy Book 2 in the series? Possibly.

Next up we have The Beast Within by Natalie Severine. This is the third book in the Lily Quinn series, and while I haven’t read the first two, this isn’t an issue. Lily is a half demon bounty hunter, paid by a college of sorcerers to find and deal with monsters. In this book it is a Werewolf, a very strong and powerful wolf. The sorcerers are also descended from Merlin, and Lily has demon strength, which comes in handy when you’re trying to capture a werewolf.

The book was fast paced with the action rarely letting up, and unlike No Shelter, you didn’t need to worry about plot holes or plot devices, because the book is all about a half demon chasing monsters. There isn’t really much else to say about it, except that I gave it 3 out 5 on Goodreads, and much like No Shelter it is unlikely that I will be buying or reading any of the other books in the series.