Evera Dark
First Cut
by S.L. Reid
A repressed Black Ops seductress and assassin falls for her latest target in this first installment of a planned romantic suspense trilogy.
The debut book begins with an unnamed bleeding woman, left for dead in a frozen field and mourning her life. “Too much violence and lies and betrayal, and so much of it her own design,” she muses. The narrative then shifts to nine days earlier, with Evera Grant on a plane returning from her latest mission. The beautiful 27-year-old has been with the Section, a rogue CIA offshoot, for the last decade, working within its “Judith Program” for the last three years. As operative “Jezebel,” Evera cozies up to male targets to get critical intelligence, sleeping with and/or killing them as necessary. While she deploys her sexuality for the job, Evera, who came to the Section after some repressed trauma, recoils from real-life intimacy, including not wanting Adam, the Section colleague whom she loves, to even kiss her. After Evera and Adam have a tense reunion at the Section’s West Virginia compound, she is sent to Hawaii to attract “Cort,” a criminal who may also be “White,” the Section’s most elusive and prized target. To her shock, Cort turns out to be a very considerate—and appealing—man. As their relationship heats up, the order comes down to kill Cort immediately, leaving Evera with some heartbreaking choices. Reid has written a nifty, edgy romantic thriller. The troubled Evera is given two equally alluring love interests, and her split personality is skillfully reflected via her alternatively fingering a childhood locket and the titanium wire bracelet that is her weapon of choice. While Evera’s capitulation to Cort is initially surprising, it sets off an entertaining action- and sex-packed sequence of events. The author also plants enough intriguing hints about Evera’s past (Section personnel immediately recognized her as “Les Grant’s daughter”) and the significance of the novel’s ending to whet reader interest in her continuing journey.
A sexy start to unraveling a damaged heroine and killer.