The Bellator Saga

Blurb: Two souls intertwined. One epic love story.

Get swept away in the passionate romance between political opposites Caroline Gerard and Jack McIntyre in the first half of The Bellator Saga.

This set contains the first three books in the series, Dissident, Conscience, and Sojourn.

Dissident
Rising Democratic star Caroline Gerard is reluctant to fall in love again after losing her husband. Can Republican playboy Jack McIntyre break through her grief and capture her heart? Told mostly in flashback and set against a chilling fascist backdrop,Dissident is a rollercoaster ride of political intrigue, passionate romance, and undying love.

Conscience
Caroline faces the biggest challenge of her life when confronted with the cruelty and sadism of her captors at The Fed. Hope fades quickly, even as she holds onto her one last bit of sanity and her unshakable belief that her husband will rescue her. But is that faith just a mirage?

Sojourn
Reeling from her experiences at The Fed, Caroline tries to forge ahead and create a new identity. But that’s hard to do with the ghosts of the past constantly whispering in her ear. She is determined to find the rebellion and move on with her life, but what will she find when she arrives there?

Includes bonus material featuring a deleted scene from Sojourn, a sneak peek at Phoenix, and a never before released love scene told in Jack’s first person point of view!

Average rating for the set: 3 stars

This set is on sale for 0.99 cents right now!

Favorite quotes:

I think good people need to stand up for what’s right before there’s no one left to do it.

Fifteen feet to freedom and of course they were sitting ducks.  Again she wished for a gun. Loaded or not.  Operational or not.  She’d kill for a goddamn butter knife.  A spork, even. Dental floss.  Anything.

Any harmless gnat can turn into a monster when granted access to power he doesn’t need or deserve.

She was going to say it was ridiculous, then realized it wasn’t.  People saw what they wanted to see, heard what they wanted to hear.  They’d readily believe the easiest story. An Occam’s Razor of ignorance.  She’d always been warned that her idealism would turn into the worst kind of cynicism.  Now she knew that had been an accurate assertion.  Any scrap of her political romance with the American public was gone.

Dissident rating: 3.5 stars

I received this set from the author in exchange in an honest review.  A very heavy political theme in the book, it was very much outside of the usual realm of genres that I read.  When I read the excerpt originally, I thought it was an erotica, and in fact it can be labeled as being duel genre. But for the most part the plot line was purely political thriller. I’ve read books like this before in my late teens and early twenties, just not at the age where I am now.  Where I can really understand what they are talking about.

The verbage was…it was heavy reading.  I felt like I had to do homework to finish this book.  There were numerous words in it that I didn’t know what they meant and I had to look them up.  And then the detail in the political aspect of their jobs was very intense. I’m not even sure it needed to be that detailed, I think the author’s style is to write that way.

The book was good.  I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone though.  Would I read the rest of the series? No, I’m not gonna finish it. It just wasn’t for me. It was written well, but the story line didn’t make sense to me with regards to the erotic component in it.  It was like two stories as one and neither of them had to do much with the other, IMO.  On one hand you had this really great love story, of two opposing members of congress.  I thought that was enough, but then she threw in this political intrigue and it just threw me out of the story. And there was a lot of flashbacks, going back and forth.  In all honesty no questions were answered, I mean, it is a thriller so I expect a certain suspense level but you still don’t know what happened between those times. It’s all conjecture and speculation and the suspense was so high that I couldn’t…there was nothing that was gonna top it if that makes sense. There was no climax that was gonna make it worth it for me. She built it so high that eventually it just toppled over and I wasn’t interested in finding out what was going on.  I did like the love story. It was awesome because it was about people who are my age. It wasn’t about teenagers and their impulsive emotions or their insecurities.

The fact that she is a widow added a lot to her background in the story. I was very impressed with her friendships that she had with Chrissy and her staffers. Her children didn’t play as big a part in the story as I would have expected.  I wasn’t feeling that too much. There was not a whole lot of focus about her role as a mother.  The book was good, it was just too detailed for me, and there was not enough climax in it.

Conscience rating: 3  stars

This story focused on her getting captured and tortured; quite frankly I couldn’t handle it. It was too gruesome for my tastes and when she would flashback to an erotic scene it would take me right out of the seriousness of the present story line if that makes sense. Maybe I am just too emotive a reader to be able go back and forth so easily. I just couldn’t do it.

We sorta find out what happens to the country and why she was wanted in the first place. I expected more, her detailed background was missing in this one.  I was looking forward to having THE answer to why.  What did she do that was so terrible as to warrant torture of the highest level?  What did Santos do to wrangle control of the president’s seat and convince the public that it was normal for so many people to go missing? I guess I am supposed to fill in the blanks here but I am just a bit of a dense reader.

Sojourn rating: 2 stars 

This one just focuses on her recovery and her mental stamina after she gets rescued from the facility known as The Fed.  Her hope that just won’t die no matter how hard she tries to bury it. I was excited to get to this one because I thought for sure that all my questions would finally be answered but alas, I was to be disappointed again.

It was too long and slow in my opinion for a third book.  By now I expect the characters to have a good ebb and flow.  The story line should be established fairly well but it was still the same one from the first book. I was still trying to find answers to the my original questions.  There had been no progress so I felt I was just re-reading the same book again except with a few new characters.

All in all, I’m glad I read it.  It has an interesting look into what it means to be a politician, affecting change and standing up for what is right, even if it costs you what you hold most dear.

This book satisfies the Political spot on my book bingo card.