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by Joan Swan
5 HEARTS
From Goodreads
Jessica Fury, Washington lobbyist, has money, connections, and her own firm. But five years ago she had something better: happiness. Her firefighter husband, Quaid, was handsome, courageous, and crazy about her. Then one day he walked into a chemical inferno—and never walked out. Jessica has been through hell to get back on her feet. And then a rumor surfaces that could bring a miracle or shatter her world – again.
Q has been a prisoner forever. He’s honed his mind and body into weapons. He’s developed abilities no one else understands. But he’s still at the mercy of a cabal of ruthless men, who blank his memory, test him like a lab rat, and tell him lies. Although his past has been erased and his future looks grim, instinct tells him he has a woman to live for. What his mind can’t remember, his body can’t forget…
The heat is on.
Joan Swan is back and better than ever with Rush, the third installment in her exceptional Phoenix Rising series!
Rush is Quaid and Jessica’s story. Two characters I wasn’t sure I would be interested in reading about since there hasn’t been much of a chance to make any kind of connection with them but believe me I couldn’t have been more wrong. Rush is by far the best, and my favorite, book out of the Phoenix Rising series so far! It’s impossible not to be captivated by the ongoing governmental conspiracy in this series and now with the revelation of Quaid and the appearance of some new players (and sudden disappearance of others) we are really getting into the thick of things!
Rush takes over where the previous book Blaze leaves off. The Castle is now in ruins, Cash has been rescued and the team finds out that there is a very real possibility that the prisoner that Cash befriended named Q is actually Quaid Legend, Jessica Fury’s deceased husband and their former team member. And in what I think is one of the highlights of Rush, Ms. Swan starts off by affording us a glimpse of Jessica and Quaid’s life, as well as the teams’, not only before but DURING that life changing warehouse fire.
So what would you do, how would you feel if suddenly you are faced with the fact that the husband you thought had died, and you have mourned for five long years, might actually be alive? Jessica Fury is suddenly smacked in the face with that realization and is given a second chance with her husband, one she thought she would never see again, only to find out the man she is with isn’t anything like her husband at all. While he resembles him physically, mentally he is nothing like the man she married. Five years spent as nothing more than a lab rat will do that do a man. Quaid has been programmed to be the ultimate fighting machine, the invincible soldier. He’s nothing like the carefree firefighter we get a glimpse of in the beginning of the book. It actually hurt to watch Jessica get Quaid back only to have her realize that she really didn’t have him back at all and the chance existed that the Quaid she knew and loved might never come back. It was like watching her lose him all over again.
But it wasn’t just Jessica who was feeling the loss of the old Quaid while trying hard to adapt to the new one. Ms. Swan does a great job of showing how the reintroduction of Quaid back into the fold emotionally affects the rest of the team as well, especially Kai who took Quaid’s death, or supposed death, exceptionally hard since it happened on his watch.
Even more heart breaking than watching what Jessica was going through was watching Quaid try to remember who he is and was and what he means to Jessica and the rest of the team. Here is a man who has spent the past five years locked in a cell being nothing more than someone’s personal science experiment and only knows himself as a letter, Q. And even though he never knew her name Quaid has spent the last five years doing nothing but dreaming of Jessica. The dream of her is what has kept him going all this time. And now that he finally gets to see her, knows that she is actually real, he finds that he has all these intense feelings but has no idea how or why he has them because he doesn’t remember himself as Quaid. You can just feel not only his anger and frustration over that but how much it hurts him each times he has to tell Jessica he doesn’t remember anything. Because you know how much he wants to remember not only for her but for himself as well.
Mystery and intrigue runs high in Rush and the reappearance of Quaid helps bring about not only some pretty interesting revelations but also some pretty interesting unsolved mysteries as well, like Trent Dare, Quaid’s partner from the Castle. With the whole team back in Rush, minus Seth who is off doing research, the quips are flying left and right! And in the middle of the team uncovering important evidence we are witness to a rare glimpse of emotion from Mitch a/k/a “Mr. Mouthy” and are then treated to a sneak peek of Shatter, Mitch’s long awaited book, at the end of Rush. And oh what a book this is going to be! Screaming women everywhere, including myself, have been begging for his story and in January we are finally going to get it!!
While the previous couples in Fever and Blaze certainly had issues to overcome nothing compares to what Jessica and Quaid have to endure in Rush. And while this couple certainly didn't get the ending I expected they got the ending that they needed and I for one can't wait to see what Ms. Swan has in store for them in the future!!
Make sure to check out Joan Swan's Virtual Tour for Rush which makes its stop today right here on Riverina Romantics!
Hotness Rating
3.5 out of 5
**This book was received by the author in exchange for a fair and honest review**
