BLOG TOUR: Tick Tock (EOD #1) by Jane Harvey-Berrick #TickTock

  Tick Tock (EOD #1) by Jane Harvey-Berrick

Blurb: 

Forget SEALS, Marines, Fighter Pilots - I have the most dangerous job in the world. And I love it.

James Spears is part of an elite group who lives and breathes danger. Where others run from it, he walks towards it, calm, focussed ice-cold. James is a top EOD operative.
Explosive…
Ordnance…
Disposal…

You’d call him a bomb disposal expert. Or crazy. A guy with a death wish. He’s heard it all before and he doesn’t give a shit. He’s the best.

They say he doesn’t have blood in his veins, he has ice. They say he has no nerves.
All that’s about to be tested.

Amira is recruited by the CIA to infiltrate a terrorist cell living in rural Pennsylvania. She’s the perfect plant, no one would ever suspect her. Because her brother was killed when a bomb was dropped on the Syrian hospital where he was working as a doctor. And now hate burns deeply inside her. She’s perfect.

That’s what they tell James when he’s told to train her to be the best damn bomb-maker there is. In a secret camp, deep in the woods, James teaches her everything he knows about building bombs. He’s not a praying man, but now he’s really hoping that he’s doing the right thing.

Can he trust her? Will she ever trust him? Who is playing who? And who will pay the ultimate price?

Codename: Hansel and Gretel


Oh my... This book shouldn't be read without a big supply of tissues at hand... As much as I loved this book, I also hated it (and the author a little bit as well for writing this story, nothing personal, sorry, just...this book...) and in the end, well, if the book hadn't been that intense and that amazing otherwise, I might have simply hated it. But I didn't. And I don't.
I loved the intense feelings, the love and the respect that all our main characters feel for each other, I feared with them, I feared for them, I was devastated, I cried and...well, I might have cried a bit more.

An intense story of love and hate, also of hope and loss and pain and violence. It is not an easy read, as it deals with all those intense feelings on the one hand but also due to the things that our heroes and especially our heroine experience.
I just hope that the next book in this series will present me with some kind of band-aid because right at the moment I'm still somewhat brokenhearted and, yes - furious as well whenever I think of this book and everything that happened.

 ★★★★★

Excerpt

♥♥♥ 

 

James

Where do I go from here?

The question had been running through my head for days—and now it was my last few hours with Amira.

We were at JFK, two among thousands in the vast, white terminal.

Amira and her family were flying back to San Diego within the hour, and I had a late flight to Heathrow.

Nothing had been resolved between us, and every time I’d tried to start the what next question, she’d shut me down.

A wiser man would have taken the hint, but life could be short, ending suddenly, brutally—and I knew what I wanted. I knew who I wanted.

And now I was down to my last thirty minutes to make use of my limited charms to persuade her to agree with me.

Her parents were clearly uncomfortable with my presence—I definitely hadn’t charmed them. They were grateful, but they didn’t want me around their daughter. They definitely wouldn’t want me for a son-in-law. But I had a plan…

I’d managed to persuade Amira to go for a coffee with me, leaving her family at their flight gate, and we were sitting in a Starbucks concession. Amira was drinking some frothy iced coffee crap, and I had something that was supposed to be English tea (but wasn’t).

As I reached out for my cup, wondering how to start, she caught my hand, exploring the web of scar tissue that crisscrossed my palm and wrist, interrupting the normal lines.

“So, I guess this is goodbye,” she said quietly, laying my hand back on the table.

“Only for now.”

She shook her head sadly.

“I don’t think so, and neither do you. Not really. You said it yourself—you live 6,000 miles away. This has to be goodbye.”

I studied my scarred hand, hoping I’d find the words to convince her that we had a chance.

“Well, I read the other day that they’ve got this crazy new invention called air travel. And email—it’s like writing a letter but without having to buy a stamp—wow, magic! You should try it. And I heard telephones work across the Atlantic, as well, but that could just be a rumour.”

She didn’t crack a smile and she wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“James, you and I don’t exist in the real world—we can’t. It’s a lovely dream, but it’s still just a dream.” She shook her head. “I was so naïve—Operation Hansel and Gretel—it seemed like being in a movie at first, or a fairy tale. I’m so stupid.”

Her words threw ice water over my hopes, but I wasn’t going to accept that as her last word. The game starts after you score. I’d had those words tattooed on my back for a reason—and it meant that I needed to up my game.

I wasn’t what you’d call a spiritual person, but I didn’t believe that we’d been through all this shit for nothing. I was sure of that.

“It doesn’t have to be a dream, Amira. We can make this work: you and me—us.”

She glanced up, startled, and shifted on the hard chair.

♥♥♥