Review: Fatal Strike

Fatal Strike by Shannon McKenna

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



For full disclosure, I got this book from Kensington via NetGalley. And this is an honest review even it may read a little bit like fan review.

That’s because I am a big fan of Shannon McKenna. I absolutely love her books. But that fact may not be a good thing since this book, she finally wrote the story about the cute sidekick, who appeared as the secondary character in many previous books in the series.

And the cute sidekick is what Miles Davenport was. He appeared for the first time in Standing in the Shadows (The second book in the series) as a nard who had unrequited love for an undeserved woman. I liked him in that story but also felt sorry for him at the same time. I thought Ms. McKenna was going to struck him with that woman.

The series continued and up until last book I still thought he was going to end up with Cindy. I accepted it and let it go. And in “One Wrong Move” something changed, and it was clear there will be story about Miles as well.

I was not sure about that. I was getting used to see him as a favorite sidekick, the guy who helped the hero, the guy who does the “tech” ing. I was not sure if I saw him as a hero material.

Reading this book changed my opinion and that was the most successful part of this book.

The trauma from what happened at the end of last book (One Wrong Moves) took a lot out of Miles. Fighting a psychic attack put him into coma and woke up to the life with sensory overload. Everything became too much and the only way to survive, Miles had to create shield to disconnect himself from everyone who loved and cared about him. Nothing could penetrate his shield except for the dream.

Or what Miles thought as a dream. To his shame, an erotic dream with a woman whom he failed to rescue until he realized it was not a dream. The dream Lara Kirk was the real person. Somehow she found in his mind and used it as a haven from torture. Thus, rescuing Lara became his mission.

After 6 months in captivation, Lara lost all hope except when she made contact to a mysterious man but she thought it is just a hallucination her mind created to escape the unbearable tortures until he came in flesh and rescue her.

But the enemy was not going to let Lara go easily and even with all the power of the McClouds and their friend might not be enough to win the battle.

What I concerned the most before I began reading was about the transformation of Miles’ character. I saw his growing up and had the fixed idea of him. I would really hate to see Miles with totally different personality. I think the author does a tremendous job of keeping the same person but at the same time adding something to have him more interesting.

The way he was so hesitated to kill at the beginning of the story told a lot about his beliefs and who he is. But when Lara’s life is on the line, he proved that he can also do the hard thing. I like that part and do not feel as if Miles was changed overnight. And I really loved the superhero comparison. It was fitting since he was a nard at the beginning of the series (well he still is.).

The part about past relationship with Cindy was also done very well. I totally believed he was done with her and gained a little insight of how he let it go that long.

However, I found the part about sexual relation between Miles and Lara to be too over the top. I was kind of thinking that the mind maybe willing but the body (of Lara) would not be able. Lara had been in the lock up for 6 months, was tortured severely and her body already lost some of its function. I did not think that Lara was physically capable of having sex at that point. However, I could believe that she really wanted to have sex with Miles.

And the villain, Ms. McKenna is genius when creating villain. Thaddeaus Greaves was truly scary (I meant Kaleb’s scary if he was the villain). And this book really needed a very good (mean bad) villain since this was book number 10 and all the past heroes were on Miles’ side. I di not think this book could maintain the exciting storyline if the villain was just everyday bad guy. He would be crushed within minutes by all the help Miles had.

As mentioned, I love Shannon McKenna’s books and even before open this book I expect to like it. But I love it more than I expected.

I give it an A with a warning that if you do not read “One Wrong Move”, you may feel lost a little bit at the beginning of this story.




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