My heart stopped at my throat, threatening to leap out at any moment and the feeling stuck there like an unswallowed pill for hours. Realistic, thrilling and terrifying. Fast-paced and filled with nothing but adrenaline. If you wanted a summary of my review, it’s those few words.

While I haven’t read the previous series that the Tier One Shared-World spun off of, after this one, I’ll definitely be going back to check on those books and any others by the author. The characters were fantastic, in depth, complex and complicated, and even flawed in places, but were all amazing to read. The storyline was very well done and riveting, and the pacing was fast-paced and perfect.

There’s nonstop action in this book and it was epic from the beginning to the end. I loved almost all of the characters. The main characters and antagonists were exceptionally well fleshed out. The antagonists were people I could not hate, their plot and plans born from a life of hardship, pain, suffering, and so much grief and loss. It’s hatred and revenge that fuels them and they are so human, but Chunk, having his own nightmares and demons haunting him, is just as fueled by his past and own hatred and revenge. The characters were so well done, the dialogue was realistic and the team feeling and banter was just the perfect cherry on top.

Ray did a fantastic job at helping me visualize the story with his different accents and character voices down to giving everyone their own personalized voice. I could tell the difference between Whitney and Yi, between Ryker, Chunk, and Saw and plenty, if not, all of the other characters too.

Certainly one of the biggest thrills I’ve had in a while.