Review: Decoy

Reviewed by Shelly
 

Short but sweet, this story really rocks it out. Told from first person point of view, I thought the writing was smart and refreshing.  This doesn’t mean that it didn’t get a bit too flowery at times but I’ll let that slide because I think that Debelius has a winner on her hands. As a self-published book, I didn’t find any noticeable syntax errors or editing issues. Excellent job on that!

Bio-geneticist Lieutenant Noel Casey has her new assignment for Fort Braeden where she is to study and analyze Killian who’s also called Seventy-Two. Noel is told that Killian is a born and bred genetically altered superhuman soldier.  Used to working in a lab with non-human specimen, this is perfect for Noel.

After arriving, rain soaked and disheveled, to the Bios facility Noel is immediately introduced to Killian. Once she meets him, there’s a sense of recognition and quite a bit of attraction. In the beginning, it’s hard to tell Killian’s level of attraction to Noel because we see and hear everything through her. We do get a pretty good idea he might be as enticed by her when he saves her from the aggressive and deadly actions of another soldier.

One of the pretty awesome foreshadowing hints in the storyline is that Noel has a history of nightmares and while at Bios these nightmares not only increase in frequency and but they seem to be coming true as Noel is being chased by one bad guy after another.  Quinn is a pretty boy villain, and it turns out there’s something between him and Noel too, but you’ll have to read the story to find out because that one surprised me big time.

Not only is Noel finding her life a bit topsy-turvy, while being chased by bad guys she’s finds out that humans are not the only dwellers of Earth. Called Enaether, these aliens have been living undetected on Earth for quite some time. I can’t tell you more because the story is pretty short and I’ll start giving away spoilers if I do.

I will say that we get to meet Lt. Taylor Russell, a self-appointed, guide to Noel while she’s on base. He’s got his own brand of hot hunkiness that also draws Noel’s eye (I’ll admit it - mine too). Then there’s Lt. Col. Daniels, a self-described ‘uncle-like’ soldier that made me wonder if Fort Braeden only had really good-looking soldiers (sigh).

There are very little sex scene descriptions between Killian and Noel in the story. We know they’re having sex, but all we get are glimpses.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story and look forward to other Noel Casey novels.

Happy reading folks!

Rating: B

*ARC provided by author for review

Click to purchase: Amazon

Decoy

by Michaela Debelius

Release Date: April 12, 2012