Linda
Written on Aug 11, 2018
Dangerous. Ruthless. Savage. And she's the good guy.
Abby Sinclair had a desperate childhood until she was rescued and adopted by a retired army ranger who molded her into a master of self-defense. Now, she's a cunning and fearless assassin thrust into assignment after dangerous assignment, using everything she has-nerve, resilience, strength, sex-to come out on top. Her only rule: trust no one.
Abby's latest assignment is in Columbia: go undercover and snuff out a dangerous arms dealer active in the underground sex trade. But when Abby purposely blows her cover in a last-ditch attempt to free the helpless victims, deadly mercenary Kane Woodland is recruited as back-up. His mission: get Abby out of that hell hole.
The last thing Kane expects is to feel a primal attraction for Abby. But when she convinces him to join her on her perilous mission, their newfound passion could put the lives of their whole team at risk.
- ISBN10 0451236580
- ISBN13 9780451236586
- Publish Date 1 May 2012
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Penguin Books Australia
- Imprint Signet
- Format Paperback (US Mass Market)
- Pages 368
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451236586
Reviews
thebookdisciple
Written on Apr 7, 2018
Midnight Rescue is the first book in the Killer Instincts series. I have read a later book in the series, so I have had Midnight Rescue on my TBR forever. When I saw it was in the Audible Romance package, I decided to give it a shot via audio.
I made it through about 28% of the audio. The narrator was not working for me at all. Her attempts at the various male voices were unconvincing and overdone. But, I was liking the story enough to continue reading on my kindle. Yay for whisper sync!
Abby is a mercenary who was sent to kill a guy named Blanco. However, she ends up discovering a sex slave ring and is determined to save the innocent girls. To help her she relies on Jim Morgan's group of mercenaries and most especially, Kane. These guys are super badasses. Abby is no slouch either though! She is tough and capable, so don't think this is a damsel in distress story. Abby works for Noelle, a woman with her own group of female mercenaries/chameleons who are all incredibly deadly. To start the story, this book has to introduce a LOT of people. It can be difficult and another reason I don't think audio was the way to go. Once the plot and characters is introduced, the story focuses more on Abby and Kane and the plan/attempt to get into Blanco's compound and save the young girls. However, the story jumps from Abby/Kane to Trevor/Isabel, and occasionally even Devlin, the psychopathic stalker and it really keeps you on your toes and engaged in the story. There is no 'down time' for the reader. Trevor and Isabel are the focus of book 2, and I am certainly interested in getting more details about them as individuals.
Midnight Rescue is dark in many ways. First, you have the man planning to sell the girls as sex slaves. Second, you have Abby, who was abused (physically and sexually) in the past and her attempts to deal with that aspect of her life (with Kane's help). Next, you have a near rape of Abby in the beginning of the story. This is NOT a light romantic suspense read. Its dark and deals with real life issues that many people don't think about on a daily basis but exist in the world.
- POV: 3rd
- Tears: no
- Trope: secret identity, mercenaries
- Triggers: so many; child abuse, sex trafficking, rape
- Series/Standalone: stand alone
- Cliffhanger: no
- HEA: yes
authors like Kaylea Cross, Katie Reus, Cynthia Eden...then you will probably like Midnight Rescue!
See full review on The Book Disciple
Cocktails and Books
Written on May 31, 2015
Midnight Rescue kicks off Elle Kennedy’s Killer Instincts series with a bang, featuring Abby Sinclair and Kane Woodward. Abby is a female assassin while Kane is a mercenary, so when these two and their teams get together it becomes explosive. Abby blows her own cover on an assignment because she is determined to save a group of young girls and pays a price for it, so when Kane’s group come to rescue she is livid because she thinks she can handle the situation.
The first part of Abby’s life was horrific before she is plucked out of that situation and trained to be an assassin. She is as hardcore as they come, unwilling to bend even at the expense of herself. She has my upmost respect, and her transformation was interesting to watch. Kane is a warrior down to his core, but I loved the way he was willing to allow Abby to be herself while still protecting him. Overall this was a nice beginning to a new series, I loved falling in love with a new cast of characters, and can’t wait to read their stories.This book was reviewed by a member of the review staff at Cocktails and Books. The name of the reviewer can be found under the post categories.
Rowena
Written on Apr 27, 2015
Abby Sinclair is an assassin who has been undercover for a while. When she misses a couple of check in times, Abby’s boss wants to know what happened to her. Reaching out to a team of mercenaries for help in extracting Abby from the prison she’s been in, Noelle (Abby’s boss) is not at all happy that she’s going to Jim Morgan of all people for help. But Abby’s life is in danger and she needs Jim’s help.
Jim gives Kane Woodland the lead on Abby’s extraction since he’s expert. They’re extracting Abby from a very dangerous arms dealer’s compound. It won’t be easy getting Abby out but when they do? All hell is going to break loose…Kane just wasn’t expecting the explosion to come from Abby herself. Abby is hurt and down but she is not going to leave the girls she found behind. She’s going to go back and save them before they can be auctioned off as sex slaves but she needs Kane’s help.
Abby doesn’t trust anyone and it takes her a long time to let Kane in. Kane has no idea why he wants Abby to trust him, but he does. When the team decides to help Abby save those young girls, there’s a lot of tension. There are team members who don’t trust Abby and some team members that are only taking on the mission because it’s a suicide mission and a lot is at stake but Kennedy does a really great job of weaving this story. There was so much going on but not once was I confused or bored. I couldn’t read this book fast enough.
I really came to love everyone on Morgan’s team. Even D. Sure, D pissed me off with how mean he is and the things that he said to Abby before she begrudging wins him over but overall, the characters were really what won me over. I am so anxious to continue this series because I’ve grown very fond of all of the boys, Trevor especially. I’m mighty curious to see what happens between him and Isabel, how they’ll come together because I know they do. I’m also curious about Morgan and Noelle’s past. Lots and lots of sexual tension going on and not just with Abby and Kane.
Kane and Abby were a great couple and I liked seeing them come together but there were times when I was more interested in what was happening between the other characters in the story. Overall, this was an action packed story with a great cast of characters and a steamy romance between two very headstrong people. I think my one gripe outside of Abby’s stubbornness was the cover. The heroine on the cover can’t be Abby because Abby’s hair was red in the book. She was a redhead when she with Blanco and she was redhead after she left the compound so who the heck is the blonde?
I’m definitely in for the remainder of this series. I can’t wait to continue so of course I recommend this book.
EBookObsessed
Written on Apr 10, 2015
Normally if given enough time, I try to catch up with an established series before I read an ARC. In this case, when I read Midnight Pursuits last April, I was gifted with the first three books in the series and these have been sitting on my bookshelf waiting for an opportunity to be read. When I saw an audiobook copy available on sale, I snatched it up and finally had a chance to listen to this first book in the series.
The heroine Abby Sinclair was raped as a child when her drug addicted mother left her alone with one of her Johns. Shortly afterwards her mother died of a drug overdose leaving Abby in the hands of a system which didn’t care and a string of abusive/rapist foster homes. Lucky for Abby, her last foster home was located next door to Jeremy, a former operative and friend of Jim Morgan, who didn’t ignore the pleas and cries of a young girl and who removed her from the foster home and eventually adopted her. Abby’s upbringing made it hard for Abby to establish relationships or simply interact with people. She even kept her distance from those she considered friends.
We know that deep down Abby is a good person since she blew her cover as an assassin to save a group of little girls. She was supposed to kill a drug lord, but found out that he was holding a group of about twenty young girls (11 to 15) to sell as sex slaves in a private auction. The only way to get to the little girls was through the drug lord’s prison so she stole a key and blew her cover so he would lock her up. Her boss, Noelle, went to Morgan for his help recovery Abby when Abby stopped checking in.
Abby was unhappy to be rescued and taken from the situation. She was unconscious at the time of her rescue after the severe beatings she was subjected to and doesn’t even trust the men who rescued her enough to explain why she blew her cover while they were still in Columbia. It takes her several days at Morgan’s home base to explain what she was doing and why she got herself imprisoned. Abby is so unlikable a character that no one in Morgan’s group wanted to help rescue these little girls about to be sold to perverts until Abby declared she was going to go back by herself, then Morgan’s team reluctantly got on board and that had as much do to with her fellow chameleon, Isabel, who is charming and personable, than it did with Abby and her crusade.
THOUGHTS:
Thankfully, I have already enjoyed three of the later stories in this series and several other characters have caught my attention and interest for future stories. If I had started here with Abby and Kane, I would not have bothered grabbing the next in the series.
I found it very hard to relate to or sympathize with Abby since she didn’t seem to have any emotions and as I reader, I was not connecting with her at all. She doesn’t trust anyone to help her so without any forethought or contact with her boss, Abby changes her plans from killing her target to being a captive. She is nearly gang raped as a form of torture and was close to being beaten to death because she didn’t step back to make a plan of how to get the girls freed. She would have died in the prison and the girls would have been sold simply because Abby couldn’t or wouldn’t trust anyone else to let them know what was happening or to ask for help.
Kane is the hero of this story but his character wasn’t really fleshed out except as a backup leader to Morgan’s group. Even he has a hard time connecting to Abby and because of it there was no real chemistry between these two. Kane falls for Abby because he is supposed to. It felt so forced. There was not even a sexual draw between them.
The audiobook narrator did an okay job with it but she is not someone I will look out for. She had a few different voices, but Noelle was left with almost a masculine sounding voice when the only major female characters were Abby, Isabel and Noelle.
I was absolutely disappointed in this story and only finished it to see how they accomplished getting the girls out, but I was close to just tossing this one out instead of finishing.