Reviewed by Susan65
Title: Origins
Author: Shannon West and TS McKinney
Series: Gods of War #1
Heroes: Logan & Luke
Genre: M/M Scifi
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Painted Hearts Publishing
Release Date: April 11, 2018
Available at: Amazon
Add it to your shelf: Goodreads
Blurb: Former Army Ranger William Logan is serving hard time in Leavenworth for a crime he didn’t commit. With three months left on his sentence, he’s approached by a recruiter for a private military group. The Red River Group make him an offer he can’t refuse—a get out of jail free card and a chance to continue as a soldier, working as a hired gun. He’s sent to join a team already in training for their first mission. The new soldiers are all former elite military but also misfits, like Logan, and recently sprung from brigs across the country.
At the training facility, he meets company man and trainer, Luke Warren, a former Navy SEAL. Logan begins an intense relationship with the prickly but gorgeous man as they get ready for a top-secret mission against the drug cartels in Mexico. The team has to make sure that MARS, a highly addictive and lethal new drug, along with the factory that produces it, is completely destroyed.
When everything on the mission goes wrong and the factory blows up in their faces, the team wakes up to find they not only survived, but the now have impossible enhanced strength and abilities. Frightened and confused, not knowing who to trust, Logan leads the team in a run for the States to find a safe haven, forcing Luke to come with them.
With violence and intrigue swirling around him, Logan relies on his instincts and his ingenuity to discover who his allies and his enemies really are. As they travel across the country, Logan and Luke begin to realize that they have to stick together and they’ll need all their newfound abilities and a lot of luck to make it out of this alive.
Review:
I love paranormal, I love military and action, and I love watching big, tough men show their softer sides. We get most of that in this one…the softer side? Not so much, but it was there, in a super masculine way, if you looked really hard. This story reminded me, a lot, of the Metahuman Files series by Hailey Turner, but was just different enough that I enjoyed myself immensely and was happy to have another series, full of the tropes that I love, to read.
Logan, and his secret government paramilitary band of fighters, were at one time all special forces military men who found themselves in hot water…and prison. Logan’s crime was more being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, without friends, and being an idiot…but he is not a bad guy. Luke is his gorgeous, but very uptight and prickly superior…and a very hot submissive to Logan’s dominant and alpha tendencies. This is not a bdsm book, per se, but a more playful sexual escapades that includes roughhousing and borders on non-con…but doesn’t cross any lines, well not any lines that Luke draws, anyway.
In addition to the growing relationship between Logan and Luke, we have to deal with a mission gone wrong, finding out they were actually pawns and were supposed to be dead. And somehow, they all now have superhuman strength, can get shot at point blank range and come out stronger than ever. We get a lot of closure but there are still some questions to be answered. For the most part, this was a great start to a new series and I am looking forward to seeing what happens next.
Overall Impression: I really liked it
*I purchased my own, personal copy of this book for review.*
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