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The Russian Obsession
Foreign Affairs #3
By: Nikki Navarre
Releasing February 21, 2017
Self-Published
The Russian Obsession
Foreign Affairs series
Christabel Orlova remembers nothing before the night she woke in a Turkish bazaar with two passports, two governments on her tail, and no memory of her shadowy past. Armed only with keen wits, survival instincts and mad skills in the research lab, Christa has three goals. Stay alive. Stay one step ahead of her hunters. And find a cure for the Ebola bioweapon whose secret is locked in her brainbox—before it wipes out the human race. Gypsy, loner and wild child, her first rule of survival is never to trust.
Ex-Russian fighter pilot Max Vasylko is a gun-for-hire smuggler who’ll fly contraband cargo anywhere in the world, no questions asked. But he can’t fly far enough to forget the wife and daughter who died in an Ebola outbreak. When a bioweapon from a rogue U.S. program is to blame, Max’s mission turns personal. Find the scientist responsible for designing the super virus—and make her pay. The last villain he expects is Christa: a smart, sexy, scrappy survivor in hiking boots who’s lost her own brother to the virus.
Now Max is flying high above the African jungle with enemy agents in his six and a sweet redhead he’ll risk his backside to protect. Christa’s tempted to trust this hot-as-hell jet jockey with his wildcat courage and Mafia past. But the vaccine isn’t the only secret locked in her head. To uncover the truth, Max and Christa must win their toughest battle yet. The battle of hearts between them.
The biggest bouncer she’d ever seen was powering toward her like a tank on steroids. Packing a machine gun the size of a bazooka.
Teetering on her stilettos, Christa froze. The music throbbed in her ears like a heartbeat. An electric current of panic pulsed through her veins. Cheesed-off cops on one side and a bad guy bouncer on the other.
And, clutched tight in her perspiring palms, the McGuffin. A briefcase holding five million doses of a deadly virus. Or a cure that could save the world.
“Hey, doc.” A voice dipped in Brooklyn brass grated in her ear. “I swear to God, I ought to turn you over my knee.”
Alarm and annoyance jolted through her—swamped by overwhelming relief. She spun to face six and a half feet of towering menace. Ultramarine eyes seared through her like lasers. Stripped to his tee shirt, bronzed biceps and wicked tattoo sheened in sweat, Max Vasylko spelled danger with a capital D.
The breath shuddered out of her tight-locked lungs.
Along with a whopping dose of sass.
“What kind of grunting Neanderthal are you, major? Were you raised in a cave? If you think you’re laying a hand on me, you’re going to need an army—”
“Army of one, baby.”
His low growl in her ear sent goose bumps racing down her arms and curled her toes in her boots. His big hands closed around her naked shoulders. Heat snaked from his callused palms and sheeted down her spine.
Max pushed her into a vacant banquette scattered with cards and cash. Her bottom hit the red vinyl seat with a bounce. He snagged the briefcase from her startled arms and tossed it at the opposite seat.
“Hey!” she cried. “That case isn’t a football. You can’t just—”
“News flash. I just did.”
He crawled right in after her. Right between her thighs.
Her heart was a kettledrum roaring in her ears. She slithered and scrambled over the slippery seat. He took every inch she gave him and kept on coming. Which was how she ended up flat on her back.
He crawled right on top of her, weight braced on those impressive arms.
For a moment in time that stretched surreal, like a Dali clock melting in the desert sun, he crouched over her. She forgot about the jumpy cop with the trigger finger, the tank-sized bouncer packing heat, the backstabbing ex-boss sprawled somewhere on the floor.
The world narrowed to the span of Max’s powerful shoulders and the primal musk of saffron and cedar. Above his neckline, the spiky tips of another fierce tattoo curled around his neck.
She was guessing that hidden ink spread all the way across his shoulders. Maybe all the way down his back. And that was a lot of real estate to cover on a man like Max. With the flashing lights behind him, shadows cloaked his face. And every inch of him scorched her skin.
“Wow.” She managed a husky whisper. “You’re…really…something.”
“Pot and the goddamn kettle,” he growled.
Right before he kissed her.
The
Russian Obsession is the third book in Nikki Navarre's Foreign
Affairs series and a standalone novel.
Amnesia
blocks part of Christabel (Christa) Orlova's past from her memory, a
fact since waking up in an Istanbul hotel with two passports and a
message to run. She ends up in Moscow, working in a lab trying to
find a cure for Ebola...work that's second nature to her. She's
plagued with migraines and each attack releases a fragment to a
memory from her past, reminding her that enemies are watching and
waiting to pounce. After a six foot five man with a Brooklyn accent
comes to her rescue, she's instantly attracted to him. However, can
she trust him? Is he the enemy too?
Max
Vasylko, ex-French Foreign Legion and now a high paid mercenary,
flying contraband goods around the world. When his grandfather tips
him off about a scientist responsible for the deaths of his wife and
child in West Africa, Max goes all guns blazing for revenge, only the
person who's supposed to be responsible for his family's deaths
doesn't match the intel he's received or the woman he got to know
intimately.
Convoluted...difficult
to follow. I was ready to give up between 10-20% because my brain was
struggling to juggle and comprehend the narrative. Yet, I carried on
because I love a challenge and the blurb really made me want to read
this book and I'm so glad that I persevered. Once I got past this
mark, the pace quickened as the plot takes us from Moscow to
South
Sudan, West Africa and Corsica. I think it is definitely a huge
advantage for readers to be from the US because they're many
colloquial terms I wasn't familiar with, making the task of absorbing
the text even greater in an already too wordy narrative littered with
unfamiliar acronyms and scientific language.
Overall,
I loved the suspenseful plot and the protagonists Ms Navarre crafted.
Max and Christa make a great team together and I enjoyed the build-up
of their romance and interactions. The pair share similar
heart-breaking backgrounds which created a bond, although trust was
something that had to earned from both sides. What I didn't care for
were
the heroine's inner thoughts.
***Arc
received courtesy of the publisher via Tasty Book Tours***
DOSSIER FOR NIKKI NAVARRE
DECLASSIFIED
Subject: Nikki Navarre
Assignment: Double Agent
Cover: Diplomat. Playgirl. Author of the Foreign Affairs series.
Nikki Navarre is the author of the award-winning Foreign Affairs series and the sinister twin of unsuspecting historical romance author Laura Navarre. In her other life, Nikki is a diplomat who’s lived in Russia and works on weapons of mass destruction issues. In the line of duty, she’s been trapped in an elevator in a nuclear power plant and has stalked the corridors of facilities churning out nerve agent and other apocalyptic weapons. In this capacity, she meets many of the world’s most dangerous men.
Inspired by the perilous realities of her real life, Nikki writes romantic suspense set in glamorous international locales and laced with political intrigue. From her island compound in the Pacific Northwest, she divides her time between her writing career and other adventures for government clients. Her notorious exploits in the world of diplomacy will get her in trouble one of these days.
The Russian Obsession may be the last mistake she ever makes.
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