This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Phyllis Laatsch. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romantic Suspense category.

Here is Phyllis Laatsch's review:

This is my third try at writing a review. Seriously. I was too ranty on the first and too detailed on the second. I’m going to try the thematic approach this time. Warning: ALL THE SPOILERS.

Things I like:

1. Meet cute: they play online games together and chat, but meet IRL in this crazy situation.
2. Action, action, lots of action!

Things I dislike:

• Heroine (Amber):

1. She’s super smart! Best hacker ever in the whole wide world! AND she’s Too Stupid To Live!
2. She hides a thumb drive in her friend’s tea shop and he almost gets killed by the bad guys for it. Thanks for setting me up, “friend.”
3. She gets angry when the SEAL team tests her loyalties, because they’re supposed to trust her 100% (because she and Charlie are hot for each other), even though she’s just committed treason by hacking into the Dept of Defense.
4. She tries to escape them several times, most notably toward the end. She’s planning on getting captured, even though now the SEALs have the thumb drive. So she runs down a hill barefoot and tries to take the boat she doesn’t know how to drive.

• Hero (Charlie):

1. He and his brother (Willy! Har!) are rogues with big wangs. Who share women. Isn’t that a bit… incest to be having sex at the same time with the same woman? Friends sharing is kinky, but hot if that’s what you’re into. But brothers? Squick for me.
2. He’s a computer expert Navy SEAL cardboard cutout. (On this team is: Leader SEAL, computer SEAL, inappropriate SEAL, big scary-looking SEAL, and… I dunno, maybe another SEAL or two? Central Casting says “hi.”)
3. About five minutes after meeting, Charlie and Amber figure out they know each other from the online games. Because you totally expect to meet your online friend in China in the middle of an armed mission. They just KNOW. And it’s Insta-love!

• Other plot holes and character problems:

1. The whole SEAL team has been suspended because those rogues Willy (har!) and Charlie had a three-way with the (adult, consenting) daughter of some officer. The SEAL team is not confined to base, not working desk jobs, not transferred to BFE. They’re hanging out in Hawaii and in dive bars on an extended vacation and available for unauthorized overseas missions.
2. The team leader brings his new girlfriend (H&H of the first book in the series?) along to China on the mission because she knows Amber and he doesn’t want to leave her behind. She has no tactical skills and freaks out when bullets start flying due to her PTSD from the last book.
3. Willy (har!) comes on to Amber and it doesn’t feel like playful “let’s have sex” but instead like he will only help her if he and his brother can bang her. (SQUICK: From http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/ : Verb, [with object] informal: Cause immediate and thorough revulsion.)
4. They have a gun battle and kill a dozen bad guy minions from the Chinese Triad with no twinge of remorse, empathy, or Oh shit, we just unauthorized-ly killed a bunch of people in a foreign country! We’re in deep doodoo!
5. They seize a laptop from a boat they sink and the H&H are too tired to decrypt it right away. Instead of sleeping, they hike up a million stairs to a broken down cabin on top of a hilly island (did anyone sweep the island for enemies?) to have wild monkey sex.
6. There’s an elaborate plan where they go to some sleazy casino in Macao because someone knows the owner. (I was kind of skimming by this point.)

   SPOILERS BEGIN HERE

9.The end. No, really. It just… ends.