Echoes at Dawn (A KGI Novel) [Mass Market Paperback]

Maya Banks (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 3, 2012 | Series: A KGI Novel (Book 5)

Grace Peterson is desperate, in hiding, and on the run after escaping a shadowy group determined to exploit her extraordinary ability to heal others. Her only lifeline--an unerring telepathic ability she shares with her sister--has been severed, leaving her alone and vulnerable. And time is fast running out...

Enlisted to bring Grace home is Rio, relentless member of the KGI. He's unprepared for his reaction to this wounded, damaged woman, and he's fiercely determined to protect her from those who nearly destroyed her. In Rio, she finds a safe haven, and for the first time...hope. But the mission is far from over. The danger Grace has eluded is fast closing in. And now it's pitching two lovers toward an unfamiliar horizon, with no place left to hide.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Maya Banks has it all."—Romance Junkies

"Maya Banks writes the kind of books I love to read!"—Lora Leigh, #1 New York Times bestselling author

About the Author

Maya Banks is a USA Today and New York Times bestselling author whose chart toppers have included erotic romance, romantic suspense, contemporary romance, and Scottish historical romances. She lives in the South with her husband and three children and other assorted babies, such as her two Bengal kitties and a calico who’s been with her as long as her youngest child. She’s an avid reader of romance and loves to dish books with her fans and anyone else who’ll listen! She very much enjoys interacting with her readers on Facebook and Twitter as well as in her Yahoo! Group.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Berkley (July 3, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425250865
• ISBN-13: 978-0425250860
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (99 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #29,431 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Maya Banks lives in Texas with her husband, three children and assortment of pets. When she's not writing, she can be found hunting, fishing or playing poker.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#42 Overall (See top 100 authors)

#15 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#18 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Erotica

#18 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#20 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

#21 in Books > Romance > Contemporary

#15 in Books > Romance > Romantic Suspense

#18 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Erotica

#18 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance > Suspense

#20 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Romance

#21 in Books > Romance > Contemporary

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Grace is an amazingly compassionate and resilient heroine which any reader will immediately care for. July 3, 2012

By Bookaholics Reviewer

Format:Mass Market Paperback

Echoes at Dawn by Maya Banks
Romantic Suspense -July 3rd, 2012
4 1/2 stars

Echoes of Dawn is the fifth installment in the Special Ops KGI group. In this book, team leader Rio has volunteered to find the missing sister of a teammate's lover.

Grace has been cursed and blessed with the special ability to heal. However, when she heals she takes the illness into herself and must recover. Kidnapped and forced to cure multiple maladies, she has been weakened to a dangerous level. When an unexpected and fortuitous explosion occurs she uses it to break free, but her time of freedom is numbered. For she is being hunted for her powers....

Thankfully, Rio and his KGI team find her first, only to discover that someone in their ranks may be a traitor. For a very wealthy, amoral and powerful man wants Grace to heal his dying daughter. And he will hire anyone and do anything to get his hands on her. As they go off the grid to try to stay alive Rio and Grace form a passionate bond. But what will happen when the KGI team is threatened, will Grace give up herself or will Rio be able to save her one last time?

This was a breakneck, emotional ride. The book starts out with a severely weakened Grace on the run and teams circling her like prey. They all battle for her and their motivations vary from: love, money or power. Grace is an amazingly compassionate and resilient heroine which any reader will immediately care for. Her quiet strength moved this reader. Although Rio is an alpha male with Grace he shows his softer side and their budding romance is wonderful to read. I liked how Rio senses how fragile Grace is and even as he admires her he lets her stand on her own but is always there to 'catch' her.... He doesn't sugar coat his shady past and that makes him even more honorable. The psychic connection they have makes it feel like they are meant to be together and they made a remarkable team. Grace is already my favorite heroine in the KGI series. I don't know how the author will top this book.

A compassionate heroine and a hero who comes to her rescue make for an electrifying read. Loved it!!

Reviewed by Steph from the Bookaholics Romance Book Club Read more ›

30 of 36 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Echoes at Dawn July 4, 2012

By booklover212

Format:Mass Market Paperback

This book was my personal favorite from the series, however, it's still only three stars to me.

I enjoyed this book but it wasn't perfect so I'll say what I liked and didn't like.

What I liked:

I liked that there weren't too many mushy Kelly scenes. I love the idea of a strong, loving family, but the Kellys are over the top and intrusive, in my opinion. Their gushy scenes usually annoy me because there are so many. I might be in the minority, but I appreciated this book because the Kellys were in the background.

I liked the personality of the heroine. Grace was an extremely resilient and compassionate young woman whose been through a lot in her life and still managed to be so brave and tough. I loved that about her. She made decisions that I could never in a million years make and I respected her greatly for it. She wasn't perfect, but she was still by far, my favorite heroine of the series.

I also enjoyed Rio's personality. Honestly, I understand the idea of not giving anyone your blind trust, so I can understand why he didn't trust anyone completely. I liked that he was protective of Grace, but also tried to help her build her confidence and toughness back. He didn't baby her. We got to find out some interesting things about Rio in this book, including his birth name and his family background.

I also liked the plot twists in this novel. I'm not going to spoil it, but there were a few events in the book where I was surprised because I didn't expect that., especially considering a certain member of KGI on Rio's team. The character introduced, Hancock, has a hand in one twist, and I have a feeling we'll be seeing him again. He's an interesting character, I think....

What I disliked:

First off, I believe in attraction at first sight, but love at first sight I do not. Rio claims to have loved Grace from the first moment he saw her on the video camera in Book 4. For a man who is so distrustful I have a difficult time believing that he could fall in love at first glance. I didn't like that he professed to loving Grace after less than a week of knowing her in flesh and blood. In addition, Grace claims to have fallen in love with him quickly as well, but for a woman who avoided attachments to men or people due to her on the run lifestyle, I have a hard time she fell in love with him so quickly. Yes, he rescued her, yes, he was kind to her, but I still feel as though there could've been some more buildup for love between them than less than a week. Especially considering that Grace should've been a lot more hesitant to get involved with him considering her background and his past. I feel that she shouldn't have trusted him as quickly. If I was Grace, I don't care how he rescued me and took care of me, I'd be less trustful of him regardless because of everything else I went through in my life.

I also disliked that almost half of the book was Rio's team and Grace sitting around at his house while she recuperated. I get that that was probably done to strengthen the bond between Grace and Rio but considering how quickly she jumped into bed with him, despite her being a virgin, I don't think all of that filler material was needed. For some reason, she loved him enough to give him her virginity, so she was probably well enough for them to make a move on the guys who were looking for her. Just my thoughts.

I also disliked the plot device used in Grace's story. I thought it was unnecessary. From Book 4 we got the idea that the U.S. government is after Grace for her abilities. Naturally, I expected the book to revolve around saving Grace from government abduction or getting them to understand it's wrong to treat human beings this way or something like that. It turns out that a man named Gordon Farnsworth is after Grace to heal his daughter. So what does he do? Capture her and torture her for weeks by making her heal severe illnesses and ailments to make sure she is capable of healing his child from her cancer. Now, if I was a guy trying to make someone help my child, I wouldn't torture her and piss her off. Why didn't he just ask her? He might've still had to capture her, but I'm sure if he'd treated her like a human being instead of a test subject, she'd have been more willing to try to help. It didn't make sense to me. I understand that it was done to provide a reason for Rio's team to go after Grace but it still bothered me.

There was something else that bothered me but I can't get into it without giving away the ending.

Overall, the book was decent. It was my favorite of the series, but I admit that that's only because of the lack of Kelly family love in the series, not because it was necessarily better than the others. I don't dislike the Kellys but their family can be too much to handle.

Still I have a problem with the heroines of this entire series. They all seem to be starved for familial affection. Every last one of them. And none of them come from a stable family unit, so they all love the togetherness and nauseating affection of the Kelly family, because they don't have their own family units to get this from. Just once, ONCE, I'd like to see a heroine have a normal family in this series and not become so easily attached to the Kellys because they give her what she's never had.

I think for this reason, I'm honestly looking forward to the next book, Shades of Gray. I really, really want to see PJ and Cole's relationship evolve.

You don't have to agree but that's my opinion. Read more ›

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not As Enjoyable As I Had Hoped July 5, 2012

By Jacque

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I was bored by this book much of the time and found myself skipping entire passages. I could not really bring myself to care about what happened to the characters enough to read the whole thing. It seemed a weak copy of Nathan and Shea's book.

I did like the fact that it wasn't all about the Kellys, how wonderful the Kellys are, how close the Kellys are and blah blah blah blah blah like some of the other books (all of which I enjoyed more than this one)It was nice not to be smothered by that in this book.

I liked Rio just fine, but Grace was one dimensional to me. She is easily the most boring of any heroine Banks' has written for this series. Their "love" story seemed contrived to me, forced even. I could not imagine that they knew each other well enough for their love to be genuine instead of just merely convenient or due to the stress of the situation. It was like she loved him simply because he rescued her. And while I was glad there wasn't all the "Kelly clan syrupy-ness" in this book,I missed the interaction of the KGI teams. It seemed ridiculous to me that they would not have had more to do in this story and could not have been more involved.

Just once though, I'd like Banks' to write a heroine for this series that had a strong, loving family of her own.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Comfortable And Predictable Read August 13, 2012

By Bukcrz

Format:Kindle Edition

My only problem with this book is the nauseatingly self absorbed heroine in disguised of "I don't want to be the cause of anybody dying" mantra. I don't mind that kind of thinking from a character, except in this book it's repeated over and over for like every time the heroine opens her mouth.
Other than that the book is a straight romance story with a strong delicious alpha hero and a damsel in distress heroine. Secondary characters are your perfect friends and family who loves you no matter what. Villains are as strong as the hero and gave the hero a good run for his money. It's a comfortable and predictable read if you can ignore that kind of heroine I mentioned above.
I can say this for sure, the hero and heroine would really earn their HEA and would make you root for them from page one.