Hearts in Danger

Bullet Catcher #8.5

by Sharon Hamilton

FOURTEEN stories of thrilling romance to benefit the American Heart Association. These full length, Romantic Suspense stories come from NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, AND NATIONAL BESTSELLING AUTHORS and is only $0.99 for a limited time!

Accidental SEAL by Sharon Hamilton: Navy SEAL Kyle Lansdowne goes looking for his missing SEAL Team 3 buddy Armando who has been kidnapped by a drug gang intent on buying specialized military equipment. Newbie Realtor Christy Nelson holds her first Open House but is given the wrong address, and finds a hot naked SEAL in the master bedroom. Their little misunderstanding leads to a hot affair until the gang uses Christy as bait to lure Kyle into a trap to ransom his honor.

Pick Your Poison by Roxanne St. Claire: Meet Benjamin Youngblood - he’s sexy, smart, spectacular and ... about to lose his job for the best security firm in the world. He’s got one chance to prove himself and nothing will stop him. Not even a flower farmer. When Ben sets out to track and trap an assassin, he's forced to trust a feisty farmer who could be as dangerous as her homegrown poison. Ben and Callie join forces to zero in on the killer, taking a few heated detours along the way. Can they stay alive long enough to save Ben’s job, stop an assassin, and find true love?

Protective Custody by Paige Tyler: Someone is stalking reporter Paisley McCoy, and police detective Gray Beckham is the only man who can protect her. Having a dad on the force has led to one hard and fast rule – she doesn’t date cops. And while she might be sexy as hell, there’s no way he’s going anywhere near the captain’s daughter. Paisley and Gray can’t deny the chemistry between them, though. But as that connection turns into romance, they find out the stalker is a far greater threat than they had originally thought. And that if he can’t have her, no one will.

Hot Pursuit by Lynn Raye Harris: When someone starts shooting at Evie Baker, there's only one man dangerous enough to help her--the man who broke her heart ten years ago. Hostile Operations Team soldier Matt Girard uses all his considerable black ops skill to protect Evie from someone who thinks she possesses information that could bring down a crime syndicate. But working together shows Matt what he gave up--can he claim Evie for his own after what he did in the past?

SEAL's Honor by Elle James: Two Navy SEALs jeopardize their lives and hearts in a battle-torn land when they vie for the love of one sexy Night Stalker helicopter pilot.

Against the Dark by Carolyn Crane: Angel is an ex-safecracker forced into one last heist. Cole is an undercover agent with big plans for his gorgeous thief—he'll make her pose as his girlfriend to help with a dangerous mission.

Hidden Prey by Cheyenne McCray: Tori flees an abusive relationship and heads to her hometown in Arizona. When she arrives, she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time and witnesses the execution of a Federal agent by the son of the head of the Jimenez Cartel. Special Agent Landon Walker rescues Tori and sets out to protect her, but soon protecting her isn’t enough. He’ll go to the ends of the earth for her—and never let her go.

Dangerous Curves by Nina Bruhns: A spec ops transporter for STORM Corps takes on drones, bad guys, and car chases on the coast of Italy—and falls for a beautiful scientist whose curves are far more dangerous than the road!

Deadly Pursuit by Misty Evans: One year ago, rookie FBI agent Celina Davenport pulled off the ultimate undercover operation…she seduced Emilio Londano – the dangerous leader of the San Diego Mafia – and destroyed his illegal empire. When Londano escapes a maximum security prison and begins picking off Celina’s friends and coworkers, everyone she knows becomes a target. Including DEA agent Cooper Harris, the man who once broke her heart and is now assigned to be her bodyguard. Cooper must risk his career – and his heart – to keep Celina alive. But will their past, with its forbidden passions and impulsive choices, put them directly in the killer’s crosshairs?

Protecting Caroline by Susan Stoker: Caroline helps foil a terrorist plot when she finds herself on a plane that’s hijacked (with the help of three members of a SEAL team), but after she gets home she finds herself still in the sights of the terrorists. She can only hope Wolf and his team will be able to save her in time.

One Night Stand by Parker Kincade: Amanda Martin decides to have a one-night stand. No relationship, no promises … just hot, indulgent sex. What she doesn’t anticipate is meeting a handsome-as-sin stranger who gives her pleasure unlike she’s ever known. A stranger with a deadly secret…

Brody by Mandy Harbin:<...

Genres: Anthologies, Romantic Suspense, Romance, Contemporary Romance, Military Fiction, Contemporary

2221 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 2, 2015

About the author

Romance novelist of the following series:

Navy SEAL Books (includes the SEAL Brotherhood, Bad Boys of SEAL Team 3, True Blue SEALs, Band of Bachelors, and Nashville SEALs series)

Golden Vampires of Tuscany (Honeymoon Bite, Mortal Bite)

The Guardians (Guardian Angel Erotic Romance) Heavenly Lover, Underworld Lover

Lives in wine country, Northern California. When not writing, she is getting vera vera dirty in her flower and vegetable gardens.

Reviews

[Denise H. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full length stories you'll love ! (a few novellas)
for a great cause!

Susan Stoker,
Protecting Caroline, was my first time with this author. Wow, her characters are wonderful. They are emotional, deeply thoughtful, and caring. Alpha Seals are always so hot. Caroline is one strong, tough gal. She will fit perfectly with this Seal, Wolf. Loved the nicknames and that they nicknamed her, Ice, because of the ice cubes. Interesting story, lots of suspense and terrific action. Sweet romance, and lovable people. I am definitely reading more from Susan Stoker. Once you read more in this series, they get better, sexier, and you'll love them. I've now read three or four. Protecting Fiona was my favorite. Highly recommended. ENJOY !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheyenne McCray,
Hidden Prey, Cheyenne does it again !! FBI agent Landon rescues sweet strong Tori from the big bad Cartel. Lots of action, suspense, twists and turns, super sex, fast flowing, interesting tale of developing romance, and deep thought-filled characters. There were characters to hate, some to like a lot, and some to love. The story wraps you up and takes you for a ride !! Awesome, edgy, intriguing, life-like drama, with the romantic anticipation to make this a really wonderful read. ENJOY !!!

Nina Bruhns,
Dangerous Curves, I had never read Nina Bruhns before, and now I have another new author to savor. Ex Marine Intelligence, Darryl, is in Italy working for STORM Corps, when Dr. Linnea Gordon has her top secret drone plans stolen. Darryl must protect her, regain the plans, and along with the time spent together, he finds her irresistible. He loves each and every curve of the gorgeous doctor. Well done, well written, fast, exciting, suspenseful, sexy, deep characters, interesting story, and lots of action make this short story worthwhile. ENJOY !!!

Once I read more stories, I'll add to this.

[Karlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for Accidental SEAL:
Christy is excited about her first open house and ends up at the wrong house and gets attacked by a very naked man. Kyle is at his missing buddy Armando's house where he meets Christy not realizing she was an innocent at first. After their chance meeting, their one night stand becomes a two night stand and little do they both realize is Christy is now involved with the search for Kyle's SEAL brother. Can Kyle and his team buddies find Armando before more dead bodies surface and the woman he doesn't want to love get taken? Loved this story, I really like Christy, I've read some other SEAL stories with Kyle and Christy and it was neat getting their beginning story!

[Sheila Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a jam packed action extravaganza of hot dangerous men, strong witty women and relationships between lovers, friends and co-workers that were intense and contentious! Great stories with lots of curves and lots of guessing and the sex hot enough to scorch! Can't wait to read more and can't beat the terrific price for this bundle!! Brody is hot,hot,hot!!!

[Sparkymom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice set

Although I didn't like every book in the set, I did find a couple of new authors and series I plan to explore further. It was a great deal for the money and kept me occupied for quite a while. My one complaint would be that it did not have a table of contents that would let you go to whatever book you wanted.

[Mandy Harbin · Rating 5 out of 5]

$0.99 Romantic Suspense Box set to benefit the American Heart Association will release 6/2/15 and only be available for one month! Check www.heartsindanger.com for pre-order bonuses and contest information!

[Cheryl L Rybolt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot men and Sexy women

Every story in this set was an adventure. All of the men had their issues, but the loving women who caught their eye were all very special in their own ways. Very entertaining collection.

[Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enraptured

This box set was thrilling and exciting. I don't think there was one book in this series I didn't like. The characters were believable too. I got to read some new authors so now I will be on the look out for new books. Definitely a good read.

[Janet L. Hage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most excellent collection

The editors did a great job bringing you a selection of alpha males, suspense, mystery, adventure, romance, and entertainment in this series of full length novels. Adult only due to sexual and violent content.

[Sally Hutcheson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoy . Readers

I enjoyed each of the fourteen romance thrillers . It takes a who look veto read all of them but easy to pick up and enjoy

[Kathy Crouch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great boxed set

I had read several of these stories as stand alone books. All of them were great. I'm glad the proceeds are for a good cause.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall rating of 3 stars is the result of averaging ratings for all the stories.

First of all, let me just say that I appreciate the $.99 cost of this book, and the fact that it benefits the American Heart Association. One other benefit I would list is that reading straight through it like I did, all 14 stories, was just kind of an easy way to read without having to decide what was next. I guess I am just lazy. :)

Now - for the bad news. So many of these stories were just OK or even downright bad. With one real standout and 2-3 other promising offerings, that left me with 9 just OK stories to slog through. Several times I was wishing I could DNF one to skip to another, but there was no table of contents function for this book in my Kindle so short of paging through to find the next story, I couldn’t easily do that. I did end up skimming some. Here’s my take on each story.

Accidental Seal by Sharon Hamilton. The writing was clear, I could at least follow the story and action without being confused. I found both leads to have very little depth however. There was also an abundance of cliches throughout and in the end it was just not believable. 2 stars for me.

Pick Your Poison by Roxanne St. Claire. This was one of the 2-3 “promising offerings” for me! The plot was original within the context of this compilation, and the characters had some cliche romance novel aspects to them, but were more fully fleshed out. Callie especially had a little more pep than I was expecting, and the connection between Ben and Callie felt realistic. The action was well described and paced well. The romance aspect was spicy and had enough wit to avoid being sappy. In all, I found myself wishing this was longer. 4 stars.

Protective Custody by Paige Tyler. Pretty good suspense, spicy romance. Decent characters but the “plot twist” was clear to me from the outset. Not terrible, right in the middle of the pack. 3 stars.

Hot Pursuit by Lynne Raye Harris. I actually really liked this one. Strong, palpable setting of the small town on the bayou. Well drawn backstory, with Evangeline having lost her restaurant to a con artist and having to turn to Matt Girard, her childhood best friend who took her virginity when she was a teenager and then left her to deal with the fallout years ago, for help. Matt and Evie have a connection that felt real, and their re-connection feels honest and fraught with danger. Add to that the real danger of the criminals after Evie and it’s exactly along the lines of what I think a romantic suspense novel should be. 4 stars.

Seal’s Honor by Elle James. Lots of telling rather than showing in this one. The two leads got together before the start of the story and we really don’t see their relationship evolve much. Seems like a decent idea for a book - one male soldier in love with a female soldier but their relationship is on the DL and his best friend is in love with her too. Friend gets critically injured and girl agrees to marry him to give him hope to survive, etc. Will they ever be able to be together? But James didn’t execute on the plot with characters and interactions that got me invested. So I didn’t really care. 2 stars.

Against the Dark by Carolyn Crane. So I had already read this one and everything else by Crane and it was by far, hands down, the best in this compilation. I love everything about Angel and Cole’s story. Each of them has their demons they bring into it, she is ashamed of her past as a criminal, while he is obsessed with taking down criminals and will do anything, including using her, to do it. Neither of them expects each other and the way they come together and take down the bad guy is combustible, exciting, and absolutely embodies the concept of romantic suspense. Crane always does intense, psychological romance well but some of her stories resonate more with me than others, and this is one of my favorites. 5 stars!

Hidden Prey by Cheyenne McCray. Decent but strained the bounds of suspended disbelief a little too much. I did like that Tori was a musician and thought the setting was well drawn. 3 stars.

Dangerous Curves by Nina Bruhns. A little too quick and easy how these two fell into bed and then ended up in a cottage by the sea. Didn’t have quite enough oomph to pull off that level of speed. 2 stars.

Deadly Pursuit by Misty Evans. Longer than some of the other stories, and an appropriate amount of build up and backstory. Celina is a rookie Latina FBI agent and Cooper is the grizzled DEA team lead she works for when the shit hits the fan and they have to go on the run. While I enjoyed that Celina is capable and not a damsel in distress like so many others in this genre, some of the twists and turns and machinations of other agents and criminals were a little fantastical. 3 stars.

Protecting Caroline by Susan Stoker. Could Caroline be any more self-deprecating and mousy? Could Wolf be any more the cliche “player just looking for the girl with a heart of gold” soldier? Could they fall into insta-lust any quicker? While the terrorism subplot was more interesting than some of the other books, all in all I was mostly just annoyed. 2 stars.

One Night Stand by Parker Kincade. After the eye-rolling self-effacery of Caroline in the last story, the banter between smart-ass Amanda and her friend Sam was refreshing! Amanda’s 3 protective older brothers are good for a little bit of comic relief. And it’s nice to have a family dynamic instead of the whole military team dynamic that is in most of these stories. This was pretty good but not really a standout. 3 stars.

Brody by Mandy Harbin. Xan is a single mother in the witness protection program, fleeing her mobster ex-husband. Brody is a hot, amnesiac mechanic and covert operative (puhlease!) assigned to protect her. They fall into insta-lust and then must overcome obstacles (some danger but mostly themselves, of course) to be together. The most problematic aspect of this story for me is how we’re told Xan was brutalized and raped by her husband and has had no lovers or friends for the last 12 years, but she immediately falls into some risky and submissive sex with Brody with no qualms at all, and even into a typical girly BFF relationship with her neighbor including frank discussions about sex and girls nights out. It just undermined the backstory and helped to deflate my level of engagement with the urgency and suspense. 2.5 stars.

Enemy Mine by Megan Mitcham. So the problem with this one is, it’s a strong plot and I even liked the characters. They had their dark pasts and secrets and their reasons to mistrust each other, as well as a history and reason to love each other. And there were genuinely good moments in this, themes of forgiveness, overcoming past abuse that resonated. But in spite of all this good stuff, the prose was florid, convoluted, and just plain hard to understand. While I believed their connection, I definitely felt there was some overkill in the “Oh I love him - Oh I love her - Oh this love overcomes all” department that undermined what were essentially strong characters up to that point. I think this book could have stood to be edited. Take some of the sappy love talk out… some sappy love talk is impactful, too much just overwhelms all the other elements of the story and takes the whole thing into a less comfortable place. So I wanted to like this one and I feel this author might improve with other books (no idea what other books she has or if this is her first), but it disappointed given its potential. 3 stars.

Caught in the Crosshair by Barb Han. It was interesting (in the context of a “romance” novel) that this book was better when the two leads were swimming in the ocean during a hurricane, fighting off sharks and South American cartels, than it was when they were having sex. So that is to say, I liked it until they started doing “it” and then it went downhill quickly! It was like all the author’s ability to succinctly describe the character’s actions in a linear fashion went right out the window. I was scratching my head during the sex scene. It really seemed like the author wrote the scene and then re-wrote it a couple more times and then couldn’t decide which was better so she just copy/pasted it all together. Some of the things the characters did seemed honestly chronologically out of order… I lost interest after slogan through that. 2 stars.

In summary: I would say the stories in this anthology are pretty representative of my experience in the romantic suspense genre. I tend to prefer “secret agent” type plots more than military/Navy SEAL type plots, and that held true here. I also would have said before I read this that it’s hard to combine the appropriate amount of romantic angst and true dangerous suspense in one book, and not many authors can do it well. I still stand by that - but would add when it’s done well, it’s a potent mix. If you’re into this kind of thing, there is probably something here you’d like. I, for one, will be taking a break from romantic suspense for a while!

[Khenta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out of the first 5 stories, I finished only one ("Pick Your Poison"). The others had downright annoying characters, bad writing, and one story from the D/s- resp. DD-genre that I never read (I really don't like the idea that independent, self-assured women are "headstrong" and need to be taken down a peg or three. Even if the heroine in question is TSTL). So I decided not to waste any more time on this collection.

Two stars for Roxanne St. Claire's and Cheyenne Mccray's story (that I already knew before).

[Sandra Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining

I see what a previous reviewer meant by too much sex. One of two of the stories were like that and a couple were too violent, but that's the way romance novels are. You just need to swipe left until the story picks up again. Overall the stories were entertaining. As long as there's a happy ending, I'm good with whatever the characters have to go through. Although, the image of a character staked out in the desert is still stuck in my head.I

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag, 3.5 stars

This collection is regular length stories, not short stories. They all involve a strong man protecting a woman, although the women aren't weak. Some were really good and some were just ok.

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read several, but Susan Stoker was the clincher for me

[Andrew Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like most boxed sets, some hits and some misses, but the hits are really good.

[Pheonix Fanfiction]

23rd January 2021 - Accidental Seal: Sharon Hamilton - 4.5 stars

[Nefol_reads · Rating 2 out of 5]

The price was right and contributed to a good cause, but I only enjoyed a few stories.
Accidental SEAL **
Pick Your Poison **
Protective Custody *
Hot Pursuit (I've read this before) **
SEAL's Honor **
Against the Dark ***
Hidden Prey **
Dangerous Curves **
Deadly Pursuit ***
Protecting Caroline ***
One Night Stand **
Brody **
Enemy Mine ***
Caught in the Crosshair **

[Dianne Fagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice read

When I purchased this box set I didn't realize that I had already read about half the stories in it. Those I enjoyed reading again I did get a couple of new authors out of box set. So I'd double check the book list for this book set to be sure it's some you haven't read. With this box set you get some fantastic, some good, and some nice reads

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Many Great works

This anthology is full of great novels by great Authors! I highly recommend you read these books and find new authors like I did. My favorite new to me was Megan Mitcham. Ready to start her series of 13 books. There are old favorites too like, Susan Stoker, Sharon Hamilton and Lynne Raye Harris to name a few. Hang on tight this is a whirl wind of adventure.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I could only give this box set a 3 star rating. While some of the stories were worth 4, there were others only worth 2-3. It was worth the read (& rereading of some). You can't go wrong for the price of $0.99 and going to a good cause.

[Marcella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This box was worth it for the Elle James, Nina Bruhns, Roxanne St Clair and Carolyn Crane entries. The rest are not worth the trouble (or in the case of Kincade/Hargin are missing from the box).