Attain Heroes Without, Monsters Within (Blaze Of Glory, #2) Portrayed By Sheryl Nantus Conveyed As Booklet
picks up where sitelinkBlaze of Glory left off, I really like this group, They are all human with extras and make mistakes, They learn from them and carry on, Will see where the romance between Jo and Hunter takes them, Heroes Without, Monsters Within is a sequel to sitelinkBlaze of Glory, It's a smallpress ebook that sort of the straddles the boundary between "superhero novel" and "romance," mostly falling on the superhero side of the line, but Sheryl Nantus evidently writes mostly schmexxy romances for a female audience for Samhain, and it shows with all of the main character's wayward thoughts about the male protag's tight pants and Tshirts, plus the extended lathery shower scene following the superhero showdown.
Though my attention drifted during Jo "Surf" Tanis's romantic interludes, those were fairly brief and the superhero action was interesting enough to keep me reading.
In the previous book, we learned that all supers worldwide had been secretly controlled by the sinister Agency, which staged superhero/supervillain fights for the public while threatening them all with death by exploding head thanks to bombs implanted in all their skulls.
Yeah, it doesn't make a terrible lot of sense, but on the SuperheroAdjusted Feasibility Scale, it's far from the dumbest premise I've ever read.
The alien invasion that happened in the last book is referred to but, much like those Marvel and DC comics where an alien invasion fleet threatens the entire planet in a worldwide crisis requiring every superhuman on Earth to team up and fight an extended battle to save the world, after which everyone goes back to working theirtos while holding down a secret identity like nothing ever happened, the world at large in Heroes Without, Monsters Within shows no sign of being changed by the revelation that superpowered aliens might drop by Earth now and then for a bit of world conquest.
Instead, Jo and her team are trying to protect the public from rogue supers now that they are off the Agency's leash.
The main plot is a former "supervillain" who has now gone bad for real, A Blister under the old regime, he can create earthquakes and has decided on Dumb Supervillain Plan: Blackmail the UN forbillion dollars.
Of course he has a partner, so the first fight between the Protectors and the villains, in Las Vegas, goes badly.
The rest of the book is Jo and her team making a plan for the rematch, luring the bad guys to their second encounter, and of course, a climactic final battle with things not going precisely according to plan and the real master villain escaping for the next sequel.
It's somewhat formulaic, but if you like superheroes then you are used to formulaic, Nantus's writing is brisk and playful, sometimes a little too selfindulgent in the manner of many former fanficcers, but the main character is particularly appealing, as Jo is just full of positive and negative character traits, a tough chick who screws up, has second thoughts, is kind of hot but gets banged up a lot no, not that way! and generally lives up to her heroic role.
Not Mary Sueish in the least and pretty likable, I think what I liked most about this book is that
the "Protectors" are not the Justice League or the Avengers they're a bunch of secondstringers operating out of a bookstore in Toronto, and somehow they wind up being the world's preeminent read: only superhero team.
For "the world" read: North America, It's all a bit absurd but Nantus pulls it off without descending into pure silliness, So, if you like superhero books, these deserve a read, and if you don't, these won't change your mind.
.stars, as the character development and plotting was improved from the first book, and a good faith "whatever floats your boat" rating with regards to the fanservice shower scenes.
Jo Tanis is a superhero newbie who is still learning the ropes, One day she's saving the world from an alien invasion, The next day she's "getting her ass kicked by a pair of pimply thugs, " I'm confident she'll eventually figure it all out, All she needs is a pair of training wheels,
Fight alone, die alone,
Blaze of Glory, Book
In the weeks since Jo “Surf” Tanis and her roughandtumble band of superpowered actors broke free of the governmentsponsored superhero show, theyre all still dealing with the aftershock of adjusting to this thing called reality.
It doesnt get much more real than a mission to dig survivors out of whats left of Erie, PA after a mysterious earthquake.
A trembler that powerful is as out of place as Jo feels as the defacto leader of the troupe.
Not to mention the soulshaking feelings she has for Hunter, a team member whose past as an Agency Guardian casts a heavy shadow over any possible relationship.
It seems one of the supers, an earthwarper named Ground Pounder, has gone rogue, using his freedom from the Agencys brand of virtual slavery to put the “villain” back in supervillain.
Failure to find him before any more innocent bystanders are hurt means the team could be back under the Agencys thumb.
Its a burden that doesnt rest easy on Jos shoulders, . . especially when the man whos invaded her heart is caught in the crossfire,
Warning: Contains kickass super women, super men and a budding romance ready to go into orbit.
Also, gambling and Las Vegas buffets! It's a good read, even though it's an intermission event for the real showdown in book three.
Sit tight and enjoy the story “Saving the world aint just a single thing, its a daily routine.
”
Years ago the Agency was founded after a premonition foretold an alien threat of annihilation.
The Agency sought out people with special abilities, took away their choices, profiled their personalities, tagged them with explosive trackers to ensure compliance, and then trained them.
After which they were classified from their profile as a Super Hero or a Super Villain, Battles were orchestrated, broadcasted selfprophesying catalyst for the invasion since if it wasnt broadcasted the aliens wouldnt have known to come, and turned into a marketing product to fund the Agency.
The Supers were puppets, the Agencys cash cow, and the insurance against some future extraterrestrial threat that had come much sooner than expected.
But the whole time Supers had been unknowingly preparing like a kind of global WWE so when the aliens arrived like a Galactic UFC, it was a slaughter.
Jo Tanis, a. k. a. Surf, and her small band of Supers barely succeed in saving Earth,
Its been only one month since the alien threat was countered and after standing against the aliens, Jo has become the leader of her small band of Supers.
Her group has been dubbed the Protectors and the group has continued to help where needed however they can.
Now that the Agency is no longer in control most of the other remaining Supers have decided to just disappear, to start over.
The Agency is no longer pulling the string but that means there is no one controlling the Villain Supers that decided to go with their rogue tendencies.
The Protectors are still trying to learn the business of saving the world every day, Reality is finally sinking in with everyone realizing that now the end of a battle wont be a “cut scene” and very well could end in more death.
Theyve started to rebuild, but there never seems to be much time to recuperate or grieve of their losses.
If they are all to outlive and outsmart the Agencys rogue monsters, if they can just get over the programming and rules ingrained into them by the Agency, they might just surviveso the Protectors can do it all again tomorrow.
This is still much tamer than my normal read as far as the sex scenes, but the tension was pretty hot between the two main characters and the plot was awesome.
I love this story. When Sheryl Nantus offered me a chance to read the ARC I literally squee'd I was so stoked.
. . not that I was too surprised since after I read sitelinkBlaze of Glory I emailed her to let her know that I would be waiting for the next book with eager anticipation and now I'll be waiting for the third one.
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