Customer Reviews

Wild Card (Elite Ops, Book 1)

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Nathan Malone lived a nightmare in prolonged captivity at the hands of a Colombian drug cartel. Pumped full of an experimental drug designed to stimulate the victim's libido to an uncontrollable level, he never broke his commitment to his beloved wife Bella, although the pain was torturous.

Once rescued, he knew he could never return to Bella, else he would put her in danger from the villains that nearly destroyed him once before. Her only chance is if they believe him dead.

And so Noah Blake was born. With a new face and a new name, he can operate under the radar as part of an Elite Ops unit to bring the cartel down.

Now danger threatens Bella regardless of Nathan's absence from her life. To save her, he must go undercover as Noah Blake, sticking close to her side even while trying to keep his emotional distance, knowing they can never be together again. Easier said than done...

Lora Leigh launches her brand new book series, ELITE OPS, with lead character Nathan Malone/Noah Blake, best known for his appearances in the TEMPTING SEALS stories she has published. ELITE OPS is the start of a new saga, but is very much connected to the SEALs books Leigh's fans know and love. They even share a mission similar to the Durango team from those previous books, but with a different team of special agents, all of whom have left their previous lives for an existence based on complete anonymity.

The men of ELITE OPS have lost everything - family, lovers, anything to do with their previous lives. All of them have assumed new names, and none of them form emotional attachments.

Yeah, right. *grin* This wouldn't be a Lora Leigh romance if they didn't have emotional attachments, now would it? LOL

OK, so they aren't supposed to have relationships. That doesn't stop them, though, it only provides delicious obstacles to the happy ending we all know will be at the end of these tales. And so readers enjoy watching men who have steeled themselves against love fight a losing battle as they come face to face with the women who not only complete them, but challenge them, meeting them as equals in this battle of hearts.

The romance between Bella and Nathan/Noah in WILD CARD is all at once heartbreaking and uplifting. Nathan is a man who loves so absolutely that he can never be with a woman other than his Bella, no matter that her love is forever lost to him. He'll do anything, sacrifice everything, just to keep her safe and happy, no matter the cost to himself. His heart and soul yearn for the woman he loves, until what little resistance he had mustered crumbles beneath the weight of their mutual desire.

Bella is just a beautiful character. I'm not talking about looks, although obviously she is lovely, judging by the description of her in the book. Her personality is what really makes us believe that a man like Nathan could not only fall in love with her but forsake all other women in favor of Bella. Of course, she has done the same thing for her Nathan. No matter that she has been told he is dead, somehow her heart never quite believes it, and she cannot move on - until Noah Blake appears on her doorstep.

What ensues when these two are finally reunited are some emotionally charged, scintillating love scenes that will have you squirming in your seat even while you are reaching for tissues to dry your eyes.

Over the years, Lora Leigh has developed into an author adept at playing readers' emotions as easily as she might a musical instrument, and never has this been more evident than in the heart-stopping romance in WILD CARD.

**Courtesy of Wild on Books**

Connected Stories:
Honk If You Love Real Men
Dangerous Games (Tempting SEALs)
Real Men Do It Better
Hidden Agendas (Tempting SEALs)
Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs)
Rescue Me

Readers familiar with Leigh's "tempting seals" series will remember the character of Nathan Malone, who remained true to his wife while enduring the most horrific conditions imaginable when held captive by a drug lord who had him so doped up on an aphrodisiac (think PCP mixed with Spanish Fly) that he opts to remain dead to his family rather than return half a man with sexual issues brought on by the many months of captivity and restraint.

It's been six years since Nathan "died" and he now works for a clandestine group knows as the Elite Ops, going by the name of Noah Blake. When a white supremacy militia group in his hometown has engaged in murderous "hunts" and now is targeting his former business as a place to launder their ill gotten gains (thus endangering his wife Sabella), he is reluctant at first to take the case. But in the end he does and comes face to face with the independent woman that his wife has become (or was she always like that and he just didn't see it?) He discovers that she has never really gotten over the loss of her husband, and has dated infrequently, while her home is still a shrine to Nathan. He suddenly finds that he is jealous of ... himself? Working undercover at his garage, he's in a position to investigate and protect. But just how deep is the organization in the small town that he loves? As much as Bella fights her attraction to yet another alpha man, she notices some similarities between her new lover and her husband.

Leigh had me hooked and hungering for a story about tortured SEAL Nathan. But unfortunately, this story just did not do the character of Nathan justice. When is too much sex too much? Well, in Leigh's case, it's when the sexual passages outnumber the rest of the plot to the point where they detract from the story. While I usually love Leigh's passionate storylines, this one was just ridiculous - I finally started to skip them altogether because they were so numerous and redundant. I felt like I was reading a horrible Shannon McKenna novel which are virtually plotless. And all that dirty talk just made me want to tell them to hush already and get it over with. The plot itself was pretty interesting (what little there was of it), but all the licking, sucking, talking, nipping, tugging, petting, talking, growling, mewling, talking, spanking, and other assorted verbs just subtract from the flow of the story.

© Tracy Vest, September 2008

Dead men stay dead. At least that is the motto of the six `dead' men of the Elite Ops. WILD CARD is the first book of this new series and features Nathan Malone, who readers first met in Lora Leigh's HIDDEN AGENDAS.

Nathan Malone died at the hands of the sadistic drug lord Diego Fuentes. It is in the files and it is public knowledge. The funeral was planned and held and his widow grieved. Six years later Noah Blake roars into Alpine, TX on the back of a Harley. Bearded, blue eyed, and alpha to the bone, Noah is on a mission - to find the murderous faction of a white supremacist group hunting illegal aliens, and to connect with one Sabella Malone. Not necessarily in that order.

Sabella Malone loved her husband Nathan with every single beat of her heart and every breath she ever breathed. When he died six years ago on a mission she thought she would die with him so great was the pain she felt. For years nothing mattered; but when her world didn't end, Sabella slowly learned to live again. Dating men but not allowing them close to her heart, Sabella is stunned at the heated attraction she instantly experiences with the new mechanic her brother in law hired behind her back - Noah Blake; blue-eyed Noah Blake.

Noah rides into town under the deep cover of his mission. His eyes are looking for the only woman he has ever loved and when he finds her under the engine of an automobile, he recognizes that Sabella has changed. What he doesn't realize is that the Bella he knew is not the Sabella of today. Intrigued and unable to contain his desire, Noah sets out to insinuate himself in Sabella's life - at least for a little while - because once the Elite Ops' mission is complete, Noah Blake will have to disappear.

While reading HIDDEN AGENDAS, also by Lora Leigh, my heart hurt for the Navy SEAL so abused but still so steadfast in his wedding vows to his wife. I yearned for his book and for his happy ending. Not one word of this highly emotional and addicting novel, WILD CARD, has disappointed me. Noah Blake, while a changed man, continued to be true to his wife and though six years had passed, almost three of them spent recovering; Noah still honored his wedding vows. A more perfect character I have yet to meet.

WILD CARD is an intoxicating first installment of a brand new series. The words flow, the emotions are raw, and love is in the air. Add in the danger of Noah's mission and I could not have asked for a better book. I can't recommend WILD CARD enough. It is ultimately one of the most satisfying books I have ever read penned by this prolific and talented author.

Wild Card starts out with the love between Nathan and Sabella just blossoming. She's eighteen and he's about twenty seven so there is definitely an age gap between them. She hasn't had time to mature into the woman she's destined to be yet so when Nathan's job as a Navy Seal goes horribly wrong, he doesn't believe his soft, Southern Bella can handle the repercussions. He turns his back on the man he used to be and throws himself into healing his mind and body. After countless surgeries and numerous suicidal missions, Nathan, now known as Noah Blake, has to return home to the life he left and the wife he refused to see. Sabella is smack in the middle of a growing militia in his hometown who is targeting illegal immigrants and killing them. They might have gotten away with their activities, but the militia killed four FBI agents who were undercover. Their heinous actions brings about the attention of the organization that Noah sold his soul to. The Elite Ops. An organization of dead men who signed their lives away for the chance for vengeance. Noah has been with the group for six long years and during that time both he and Bella have gone through hell and back. Seeing Bella again is wreaking havoc on his control. He doesn't know how to handle seeing his formerly soft and deferential wife stand up to him as Noah Blake with a spine forged in steel and an attitude that leaves him spinning. During the years Noah was healing, Sabella grew up and took charge of her life. She's still very much in love with her deceased husband and hasn't been able to handle much in the way of day to day life, much less men, until Noah Blake roars into her shop on a the back of a Harley and suddenly she's come alive again. She's responding to him just as if he were her husband and at first it horrifies her, but soon she's helpless not to accept the comfort he gives her. With the timetable closing in, the Elite Ops need to uncover the mole who is leaking information and bring down the heads of the militia. The men and women Nathan Malone had trusted to take care of his wife if anything were to happen to him have not fulfilled their oaths. Sabella is practically alone and has no one to help her. Noah is desperate to do his job and protect the woman he regrets leaving. Too late he realizes the core of strength his Southern Bella held within her and wishes more than anything that he could turn back time and be the man she deserves. Bella doesn't want her fairy tale any longer though. She's grown up and been forced to stand on her own two feet and only wants the man who's in her life and who has always been in her heart.

Anyone expecting a raunchy read is going to be in for a shock with Wild Card. This was a beautifully written, emotionally loaded read with plentiful twists and turns. Lora Leigh did a fabulous job in bringing everything about slowly and carefully. Noah Blake is a dangerous wild card who has been in the Elite Ops for so long that he's practically ice. He shows no cracks in his exterior until he finds out the danger surrounding the wife he refuses to acknowledge. He roars back into town and after seeing her, can barely keep his hands off her, much less the men who dared to touch what was his. Be it old friends or his brother, his possessiveness towards Sabella reaches a breaking point and the cracks in his exterior show more and more. Noah is stunned to see that Sabella hid her true nature behind a facade of southern sweetness. When he sees the real her, he's aroused beyond all belief and as Noah Blake, he demands she give him everything she denied her husband. Their firestorm of passion awakens Sabella back to life, and also sparks remembrance in her heart. Noah Blake might not look like her deceased husband, but he sure does feel like it. Realizing though whoever he is inside doesn't change the fact that as soon as the mission is complete he's going to leave her again, and this time Sabella is not going to lose any more years to him. He's either going to stay or he's going to leave but she is not going to build any more shrines. She's going to have to fight for him though, fight against his own pride of not being the man he thought she needed and somehow convince him that she wants only him.

I really liked Sabella. It's rare that I sympathize or connect so wholly with a heroine. I found her extremely likable and her personality completely authentic for someone who had married someone older and much more forceful. I also understand her change in personality during the years, knowing it would have happened the same way with time if they had stayed married. I found her to be woman I could respect and would wish to befriend. Her long standing love for Nathan Malone was heartbreaking to read about as well as her confusion and sense of betrayal. Noah didn't trust her enough to tell her the truth and I empathize completely with her hurt. Noah was also a good character and I liked his whole bad boy persona. He had a little bit of a pity party going on in his head though, but he snaps out of it eventually. One thing I didn't like however was that one of his reasons for staying away from Sabella was the fear she couldn't accept what a dominant sexual being he was now. After reading so much about his new dark passions and the hungry beast that was awoken during his captivity, I was expecting a much hotter explosion when it finally came. Instead it seemed all talk, no follow through. This didn't deter from the excellence of the story however, just a minor irritation. They also elevate the act of anal sex to something spiritual that I thought was a little eye rolling, but, hey, whatever.

Lora Leigh has completely surprised me with how gripping and taut a tale this was. It wasn't a mindless romp in the sack, nor was it all suspense and no romance. She balanced everything out perfectly and it only goes to show how she's grown as an author and I can't wait to see what else she has in store for her new Elite Ops series. Enjoy!!

It would have been nice if these two people, who supposedly deeply loved each other, had ever made love in the entire book. It was having sex, although what they called it was much more crude. The sex scenes were graphic, raunchy, disgusting & in parts downright sickening such as the scene that comes near the end of the book. The language in these "sessions" was filthy. I'm not a prude by any imagination but most of this book left me sick to my stomach. And the sex scenes took up most of the book. The plot of the book was....I'm not sure there was one. Noah wasn't a particularly likeable person & Sabella was sort of wimpy. She let Noah basically take over her business, her home & her life. When I first started this book I thought I'd found a new author & had planned to buy the previous books. Not a chance now!

SYNOPSIS:
Sabella Malone was only 20 years old when her Navy SEAL husband left on a mission and never returned home. Six years later Bella is managing to hang on to her garage and her home by the skin of her teeth. When her brother-in-law Rory hires a new mechanic Bella takes one look at him and wants that man gone from her life. The trouble is that Noah Blake isn't even remotely what he seems to be. It's up to Noah and the other members of the Elite Ops team to uncover the leaders of the secret vigilante group who are killing both legal and illegal aliens and the undercover government agents trying to infiltrate their organization.

OPINION: My rating for this book is actually 3.5 stars.
Can a book have too many sex scenes in it? My answer here is an absolute yes. The beginning of this book was wonderful. The ending of this book was wonderful. Those were the parts where there was an actual plot which was being carried out. The rest of the book was nothing but one sexual episode after another between Noah and Sabella. It got REAL old for me. Okay, he was tortured, he was brooding, he was dark, he was trying to hide a secret. She was tortured, she felt guilty because she was attracted to him, she wanted to remain true to the only man she loved, her husband. I got it. But the sex just went on and on and on and on. Noah had been force-fed a drug for 18 months while he was held captive that was the equivalent to the drug used to make dates more "willing". (You know what I mean but the Amazon software doesn't like reviews with the word "r**e" in them.) When he had an adrenalin rush because of danger he became aroused to the point of being tormented and in extreme pain. Trouble was, he was always having one adrenalin rush after another. The scene where he had been cut and was bleeding profusely and yet they still had sex while he bled all over the place just wasn't a turn-on for me. All I could think about was having to try to get the bloodstains out of those sheets. Eewww!

RECOMMENDATION:
The idea behind this series is excellent. We met all the members of the Elite Ops team in this book and I'm thinking they will each get their own book. That's fine by me. I just hope there will be more emphasis on an actual "story" in the other books. I wanted to learn about the relationship between Sabella and Nathan and between Sabella and Noah but I think that could have been accomplished with fewer episodes of JUST sex, sex, sex. Also, I have seen reviews which say this series is tied to the Lora Leigh SEALS series. I don't think that is a completely true statement. Yes, the men from those books are mentioned by name here but that is the only role they play in this book. They are very firmly in the background so you don't need to have read the SEALS books before you start on this series.

Thought dead by his wife and fellow agents, Nathan Malone was actually enduring eighteen months of cruel torture at the hands of the infamous Colombian drug cartel leader, Diego Fuentes. During this time he was pumped full with a volatile aphrodisiac designed to stimulate the victims libido to such exponential heights that they are nearly mindless with lust. Because Nathan was a known SEAL operative, Fuentes believed that if he could force Nathan to break his marriage vows with his beloved wife, than he could crack open the agents mind for more information. Although consumed with need for a woman, Nathan refuses to touch any of the women brought to him thus holding on to the unbending refusal to be with anyone other than woman he loves, his wife Sabella.

Once rescued Nathan undergoes surgery to repair the horrendous damage done to his body. Since nearly every bone was broken without having medical treatment to repair the damage, Nathan's bones have healed incorrectly. The surgery leaves him looking nothing like the man he was before. In addition, due to the unstable nature of the aphrodisiac and the high doses that were injected, Nathan will have to live with the drug circulating his system for the remainder of his life. Now whenever adrenaline pumps through Nathan's body, the drug will trigger and he will become consumed with uncontrollable lust.

When asked if Nathan wanted to see his wife his answer is never. Sabella would be expecting to see the flirtatious, easy loving man that she married. But Nathan is no longer that man. He is cold, unfeeling, unmerciful - a monster. He would terrify her. Nathan would rather remain a beautiful memory for his wife. Nathan Malone is and will remain dead. Having joined Elite Ops, a privately funded mercenary crew of dead men, Nathan Malone is now code name wild card, A.K.A. Noah Blake.

Now, six years since his wife was informed of his death, Noah is back to protect her from a rogue militia group that has targeted her auto garage. Noah will not be telling her that he's her husband and once the op his completed, he has every intention of disappearing from her life once again. But what he wasn't expecting was a hollow shell of a woman where his wife used to be.

Six years later Sabella Malone is still in love with her husband. Her "Irish". Not only does she still wear her wedding band and her husband's old work shirts, but she also has a veritable shrine of pictures of him in her living room. Having finally gained the strength to enter society three years ago, Sabella now dedicates every waking moment working tiresomely to keep Nathan's pride and joy in business - Malone's Garage.

And although Sabella isn't necessarily happy, her life has developed into a safe and predictable rhythm. And steadily through time, Sabella has begun to think of Nathan only most of the time as opposed to every waking second of every hour, of every day. But that rhythm is destroyed with one glimpse of Mr. Noah Blake, the new mechanic hired by Rory. For the first time in six years, Sabella feels an uncurling of warmth deep within where coldness reigned.

Noah meanwhile is shocked at the changes in his wife. Her hair is dark, her nails are chipped, her face and hands are covered in grease and oil, and she is lying beneath a truck working on it's engine. The wife he knew didn't know how to even change her oil much less work on an engine. His wife had been obsessive about her nails and had blond hair. But this is the least of the shockers. Sabella now has a spine of absolute steel and she can say no with strength and has no problem throwing in a strong right hook just to prove her point. His wife is a tomboy.

Yet Noah feels such pain for the woman before him. He had mistakenly thought that Sabella would move on after his death even to the extent of moving away and starting a new life. He was ill prepared for the empty husk of the woman remaining. With that he decides that before the mission is completed and all threats erased, he is going to teach his sweet wife how to love again. Although in doing so, Noah soon learns that his previous determination of leaving his wife after the op is going to be harder than he thought. In addition, little aspects of Noah's personality are still "Nathan" in essence and Sabella is haveing a hard time explaining these pecularities away. The more they spend time together the more Sabella questions Noah's identity. And when realization strikes there is no way Sabella is losing the husband she loves twice.

I absolutely loved this story. I found myself so excited to get home and return to this novel and that feeling really drives home for me the greatness of a book. My heart broke in the begining for both Sabella and Nathan - Sabella for her heartbreaking loss, and Noah's debilitating pride. Yes, the ultimate flaw to Noah was his pride. He couldn't face the possible rejection that he had convinced himself that his wife would feel. And the darkness that was always within was so prominent now that he felt she would truly see a monster where her husband now stood. His shock at Sabella's ultimate strength was gratifying to say the least. And as these to characters fell in love again I was in complete awe of both of them and their strength.

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If grammar and continuity errors make you crazy, don't even open this book. This book is so full of them that I found myself putting it down again and again in irritation. Verb tense errors, missing words in sentences, just little things like that which pull me right out of a book when I read them. If these sorts of errors are a pet peeve of yours (as they are mine) then just skip this one. In one scene the heroine is sipping her wine in a bar and just a few paragraphs later she is cringing at the bitter taste of her beer. That kind of thing makes me crazy when I'm reading. It just makes me wonder if anyone read this to clean it up before it was printed.
I read a lot of romance novels, and I was looking for a new author since I've exhausted all of my regular ones. Ms. Leigh isn't really my cup of tea, and this many irritating little errors just seals the deal for me and I won't be buying her books again. If she's one of your favorites, you can probably forgive the mess.

I have read at a lot of Lora Leigh series including: Bound Hearts, Breed, Legacies, Men of August, Nauti Boys, Wizard Twins and Tempting SEALs (a lot of the characters from this series were in this book) ~ But this is my favorite Lora Leigh book ever....It is the only book I have ever given 5 stars to. If the rest of the book is in this series are 20% as good as this one -then this will become my favorite series (currently Bound Hearts). I have just downloaded next novella in the series, Night Hawk ~ it is available free from this location us.macmillan.com/author/loraleigh.

Others have summarized the story so I am just going to put my 2 cents in and hope it help you see if you would enjoy this story...

At first I was hesitant to buy this book after reading some of the other reviewers comments that wrote that the h was a weak charater. I HATE weak h! The book had a lot of other positive reviews so I decided to give it a try. I think people might have taken her forgiving nature as a weakness but the h having survived as she did with the absence of her husband showed her strength. I do wish that she would have stuck to her guns more with the H. I was so proud of her after they were in his truck and she tells him off. Two days just wasn't long enough for him to suffer. Then he comeback without an apology, just an I want you. The readers wanted the H to ask for her forgiveness, well at least this reader did. The author does write that he whispered words of forgiveness towards the end but the reader doesn't get to hear them. We were there too, Mrs. Leigh! What did he say?!!! :) I think that is why some of the other reviewers were put off by the H. He seemed to be completely aware of how much he was hurting her and kept right on doing it. It was almost cruel. Obviously, I did not fall in love with the H but I did feel badly for all he went through in the book. I actually understood why he stayed away. I think that having such a tramatic experience he just wasn't thinking clearly and he needed that time to heal. As a reader though I wanted him to have a moment of realization and ask Bella for forgiveness and be thankful that she never moved on instead of throwing it in her face all the time.

Some people complained that there was too much sex in the book but I don't think there is such a thing so that didn't bother me at all. I think that even the last sceen was meant to show a new level intimacy that the H and the h never had in the past and that thier relationship was different, stronger, more honest.

Overall, I think the book is worth the read. It is an original story told in a creative way. I probably will pick up another book of this series.