Rush (Phoenix Rising)

by Joan Swan

[EBookObsessed]

When Quaid Legend and his team of Hazmat Firefighters walked into the burning warehouse five years ago, their lives changed forever. The chemicals that the government was hiding in that warehouse caused them all to change on a molecular level, and left them with special abilities which certain areas of the government of very interested in using. Their lives have been monitored since that fateful day. Yet they were the luckier ones. Quaid lost his life…just not in the way the team was told. He didn’t die from his injuries as they believed, but he lost his freedom, his wife, and the future they should have had together.

Quaid was the first one into the warehouse that day and unlike his brethren, Quaid wasn’t just hit with one chemical blast, he was hit twice, and the blast shattered every bone in his body, but he survived and his body began to heal itself. And the government wanted to use that ability to create super-soldiers. When their experiments couldn’t recreate his abilities, they wiped his memory, drugged and tortured him and used him as a secret weapon.

When Teague, Luke, Keira and the rest rescued Keira’s brother Cash from government facility known as The Castle, they found their first clue that their friend Quaid was actually alive and being held by the government and used in experiments, but they need Jessica’s special ability to locate where they have hidden Quaid.

Jessica has never recovered from the loss of her husband, but she has finally stopped the downward spiral of drugs and sex to suppress the loss. She has been clean for the last year and she has focused all her energy on destroying the Senator who has been ruining her friends lives for the last five years. When Teague and Keira come to her with news that Quaid might actually be alive for the last five years, she is afraid to hope knowing that hope can push her back onto that path of self-destruction if the man they find isn’t her husband.

Except hope finds its way back into Jessica’s heart and she goes with her team to rescue the mysterious man known to Cash only as Q. What they find is a man with no memory of his past, a man who has become dark and dangerous from his years of torture and government programming. Quaid might not remember his life or his friends, but he recognizes the redhead from his dreams. Can Jessica drag Quaid back from the edge and remind him of the man he once was and of the life and the future they once dreamed of?

THOUGHTS:
This is definitely my favorite story of the series. You know I love the tortured hero story so Quaid is already getting thumbs up from me, but added to that was Jessica’s acceptance that the Quaid she knew would never come back. She sees what was done to Quaid, to his mind, and she accepts that he will never again be the Quaid she married, and instead of lamenting her loss, she is ready to accept the man he has become and create new memories and a new life with this Quaid.

Quaid sacrifices himself to protect Jessica from the full blast in the warehouse fire which subjects his body to excessive exposure to the chemicals as well as shattering all the bones in his body. We only get a sample of his years of torture at the government hands as well as only a sampling of his abilities since Quaid spent a great deal of his time being drugged so they could control him and so he wasn’t fully aware of all his abilities so he couldn’t use them again his jailers. Although he couldn’t remember his past, there was still a part of his brain the remembered Jessica and sometime when he was able to spirit walk to her. He believed she was just part of a dream he was having, but his feelings for his “dream woman” were enough to comfort him during his captivity, and once he finds out that she is real, he will do everything to keep her by his side.

It was moving to watch them reconnect after all this time and see how deep their emotions were that his feelings for Jessica survived having his brain wiped clean and he knows that he loves her, but doesn’t know why. Just Quaid’s reaction to Jessica telling him she won’t ever leave him made me all teary since he couldn’t remember anyone ever caring about him.

There are some big happenings during this story which should bring big changes to the series. I can’t wait to see what surprises Mitch’s book will bring to the series.

I have enjoyed all of Joan’s stories but this one is at the top of my list.

Received an ARC from netgalley.com courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you.

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