Like action and adventure? LOVE spies? This is the series for you!
Title: Operation Sheba
Series: Super Agents, Book 1
Author: Misty Evans
Release Date: May 14, 2014 (original release date September 9, 2008)
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Buy Links: Amazon / Barnes & Noble
Book Summary:
For fans of Homeland and Covert Affairs!
***#1 Romantic Suspense, #2 Romance, #3 Bestseller in Kindle Store in 2010!
***1st Place Winner of the New England Readers Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense!
First in the award-winning romantic suspense Super Agent series by USA TODAY bestselling author Misty Evans.
Julia Torrison—codename Sheba—is keeping secrets.
Seventeen months ago she was one of the CIA’s super agents, facing down dangerous terrorists with her partner and lover Conrad Flynn. After a mission was blown and Conrad died, Julia was yanked back to Langley and given a new identity. She is now the Counterterrorism Center’s top analyst, spending her days at CIA headquarters and her nights in her boss’s bed. Her former life as a secret agent has been sealed off with her heart.
Former SEAL Conrad Flynn—codename Solomon—has his own secrets.
For starters, he’s not dead. Going under the deepest cover possible, he faked his own death to save Sheba’s life. Now he must tear that new life apart and ask for her help to hunt down a traitor inside the Agency’s walls.
Is Conrad a rogue operative or a jealous ex-lover looking for revenge?
Julia must risk everything for the man who still holds her heart in order to decide. Drawn into a web of seduction and betrayal, she is forced to play the spy game of her life, flushing out an Agency mole and stopping a hostage situation using nothing more than her iPod and her intuition.
Review:
I have a confession to make–I am a recovering Scarecrow and Mrs. King addict. I. Loved. That. Show. LOVED it. Memorized entire episodes. Wrote fanfiction for it. When I had hiccups at the dinner table one Monday evening and my mother looked at me and said, “That’s it. No television for you tonight,” in a totally deadpan voice (clearly, this was before the show was moved to Friday nights), my hiccups were cured. INSTANTLY. (Fortunately she was only trying to scare the hiccups out of me and I did get to watch my show. But seriously–to this day all she has to do is look at me and wham! no more hiccups. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.) I still remember when Bruce “Scarecrow” Boxlietner’s birthday is. (It was last Monday. Happy belated birthday, Bruce!) Our first family trip to D.C. was the best vacation of my life because I finally got to see all the places that the characters had been, and I was sure that wherever I was in our nation’s capital, there must be spies everywhere, doing their spy-like activities. How totally awesome.
I might have actually posed for S&MK-style pictures while there, with my brother playing the part of the male lead. Hopefully the evidence has been destroyed, though.
Yeah–I didn’t get out much then, and I still don’t now. But I do still read. A lot. So…obviously, when I was offered the opportunity to read Operation Sheba for the blog, I jumped on it. Spies? A CIA mole? A romance between partners? An entire series called Super Agents? I am so there!
Operation Sheba definitely did not disappoint. There are spies galore–primarily CIA with some FBI thrown in–and a SEAL task force and female sniper (!) tossed in for good measure. The CIA mole is dastardly and completely without a conscience–and creepily well-prepared with backup plans for their backup plans. There’s misdirection and attempts to frame the good guys, and…yeah, it was total catnip in so many ways. The big takedown at the end was all I could have hoped for, and our heroine here is smart, resourceful, and refuses to take any crap from anyone. She’s awesome.
The action and suspense portions of this book are fantastic.
The romance, though? Less page time is devoted to it–a lot of the development of both romances (yeah, it’s a triangle–not my favorite–but the reasons for it here are better than most so I didn’t really mind that aspect so much) occurs before the novel begins. We see a little bit of them in flashbacks, but it’s not quite enough to get the reader fully invested in their awesomeness. I enjoyed that aspect of the novel, but it didn’t feel as real as the action and suspense bits.
And I’m still not convinced Julia made the right choice in the end.
Though the fact that the spurned guy gets his own book–eventually; because darn it, it’s not book two in the series–does make me feel somewhat better.
Ah, well, it’s her (fictional) life. I’m sure she’ll be (fictionally) happy in it, right? 😉
Meanwhile, I’m totally going to pick up that other guy’s book. Soon–because I definitely need a Super Agent fix.
Rating: 3 1/2 stars – B-
I received a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
Excerpt from OPERATION SHEBA:
The man sat perfectly still in the semidarkness watching the woman sleep. Only a sheet covered the slender body on the queen-size bed. Long hair stretched out in waves on her pillow, and he tamped down the urge to reach out and touch it. He watched the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and slowed his own breathing to match. Resting his gun, a suppressed Heckler & Koch, on his right thigh, he wished he had a cigarette to calm his nerves.
Cigarettes, like his true identity, had been given up years ago, but every once in awhile he caught himself craving the feel of the stick between his lips, the smoke curling around his face. At thirty-two, he’d lost track of all the things he’d given up to become the man he was at this moment. He’d played too many roles, led too many lives, losing his sense of duty and fairness only to find himself becoming the enemy he was supposed to search out and destroy.
But he’d never lost track of her.
She continued to sleep deeply, a sight he had rarely witnessed in their five-plus years together. Her demeanor when awake was calm and unshakable. She was analytical and calculating, sizing up any given situation and devising two or three options to keep herself, and him, alive. But in sleep, nightmares tormented her. Nightmares that gripped her :so hard she would cry out, making his blood run cold. He would pull her close and murmur reassurances in her ear, stroke her face and rock her in his arms. Anything to scatter the demons that terrorized her mind and raped her soul.
Seeing her at peace here in the early morning hours gave him comfort. I shouldn’t have come. I should have stayed dead to her, left her in whatever conciliation she has found. But he needed her and the hand was already dealt. If he failed he would be dead, for real this time, and someone else would come for her. He couldn’t fail. Her life depended on it as much as his did.
A memory of their escape from Berlin the first time he’d used her knowledge of explosives surfaced in his mind. After he had detonated the bomb and eliminated the warehouse, he had pulled her into a hotel in the Mitte District and paid for a shabby room. There they had spent those first few hours after the explosion making love under the goose-down quilt, needing the affirmation they both still lived to wipe out the pain they shared. Hours later, after he had slept and she had stared out the window at the stagnant Spree River, they wired a car and drove to Tegel Airport. Both had changed their appearance and, traveling together, never raised a single eyebrow as they passed the airport’s security and boarded a plane to Venice. Only then in the safety of the sky did exhaustion take over and afford her sleep.
The woman stirred, bringing her legs up into a fetal position. The room was starting to gray with the approaching sunrise. Her hand slipped under her absent lover’s pillow and he smiled, the familiarity of her movement sending ripples of anticipation rushing through his veins. He struggled to keep himself from whispering her name in the silent room. Pulling himself back a step from the edge, he took a deep breath, slid his gun into the waistband at the small of his back and willed himself to be patient and savor the moment. After all, he had waited seventeen months for this.
Julia Torrison sensed two things upon wakening. Michael was gone and there was another unidentifiable human presence in her room.
Maintaining her deep, even breathing, she kept her body motionless as if still in sleep to give her mind a few more precious minutes to filter through the probable identity of her visitor.
The options were cataloged in her brain. Enemies of her country and of her own making were widespread. But who these days cared whether she lived or died? She was simply an analyst now, lost in the windowless, cubicle-induced maze of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center. From her four-by-six bunker of space, she did what they asked her to—analyze terrorists. Fieldwork was behind her now. Years of training and self-discipline, invisible orders and covert operations lost in the blink of an eye, in the explosion of a bomb, in the abrupt and complete silence of her partner.
No enemy could have found her easily. The CIA had created a new identity for her, Abigail Quinn, and plunked her in their ultimate safe house at Langley. She had thought she would go mad from the sterile confinement of the CTC office, but filtering through the endless pools of information about the disciplined madmen trying to bring America to its knees had actually pacified her. It had become meditation, freeing her brain from the racing thoughts about him. About what she could have, should have done to save him. The guilt for still being alive while he was dead gnawed at her, especially in the dark hours of the night when Michael’s hands reached for her instead of his. But through the work, and because of Michael’s constant reinforcement, she was finally becoming Abigail Quinn. Her past self was doggedly being sealed off, layer of brick over layer of brick, never to be seen again.
Perhaps her visitor was simply a thief who had watched Michael leave with Pongo, his Rottweiler, for their daily run to the lake. However, no casual burglar could have made it past the posted guard at the gate or the home’s eleven-thousand-dollar security system.
Michael’s pillow was still warm where his head had been minutes earlier. Her hand wrapped slowly around the hidden Beretta 92F 9-mm stored there and she felt the thrill of the hunted turned hunter. People underestimated her because she was a woman and because her characteristic quietness was often taken for ignorance.
It was always their mistake.
Julia willed her heart not to pump out of her chest as she eased the safety off the gun. It really didn’t matter who the intruder was…he was in for a big surprise.
About the Author:
USA TODAY Bestselling Author Misty Evans has published over twenty novels and writes romantic suspense, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance. As a writing coach, she helps other authors bring their books – and their dreams of being published – to life.
The books in her Super Agent series have won a CataNetwork Reviewers’ Choice Award, CAPA nominations, the New England Reader’s Choice Bean Pot Award for Best Romantic Suspense in 2010 and the ACRA Heart of Excellence Reader’s Choice Award for Best Romantic Suspense in 2011.
Her Witches Anonymous series was dubbed a Fallen Angel Reviews Recommended Read. The Super Agent Series, Witches Anonymous Series, and the Kali Sweet Series have been on multiple Amazon Kindle bestsellers lists. Her culinary romantic mystery, THE SECRET INGREDIENT, and the first book in her Deadly series, DEADLY PURSUIT, are both USA TODAY bestsellers.
Misty likes her coffee black, her conspiracy stories juicy, and her wicked characters dressed in couture. When not reading or writing, she enjoys music, movies, and hanging out with her husband, twin sons, and two spoiled puppies.
Connect with Misty: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads/ Newsletter / Pinterest
Break the Code Contest
Break the Spy Code Contest with Giveaways!
Misty Evans wants you to be a spy! She’s hidden code words on her website that make up a famous quote from her Super Agent novel, OPERATION SHEBA. Gather all eight words to form the quote and be entered to win an iTunes or Starbucks gift card.
To play: Find the first word and instructions here: http://readmistyevans.com/book/4/operation-sheba
Once you have the famous quote, message Misty with it on her Facebook Fan Page (Be sure to Like the page first!) and you’ll be entered into the drawing.
The contest will run from May 14 – 23. Winners will be announced on Misty’s Facebook page on May 26th!
Blog Tour Stops
May 14, 2014
Chris Almeida & Cecilia Aubrey
May 15, 2014
May 16, 2014
May 17, 2014
May 19, 2014
May 20, 2014
May 21, 2014