As we write this, we’re approaching our first hundred reviews on the ‘Zon. Normally, we’d wait another week or so, but we wanted to share what early reviewers are saying about Alpha Strike.
What?! You haven’t heard about our new novel? How is that possible?1
We took a risk with this story. We followed up our submarine thriller, Weapons Free, with a wild tale about a hostage rescue of a doctor kidnapped by a jihadi warlord in the deserts of Mali, plus other mayhem, best described by longtime reader Jules G:
The characters and plots include a doctor, kidnappings, the CIA, politicians, money launderers, drug runners, assassins, revenge and greed to name a few.
High stakes, to be sure, but not exactly our usual fare of WW3 levels of geopolitical risk. We explained how we got from here to there in our post, Two Navy Guys walk into the desert…and come out with a new novel, but that begs the question:
Did our readers buy that shift?
The answer is yes…and no. While the written reviews are very complimentary, the histogram (the bar chart on Amazon that shows the review distribution) has some ratings below our typical average.
Longtime reviewer Tom Savarino addressed the question head-on in his review:
I admit that I’m a big fan of the authors. I was a little concerned that they’re deviating from submarine stories, where they absolutely excel. Not to worry! While the main action occurs on land, in Mali in particular, they put a story together in the way that they can really do.
Jen and Chris, our UK wife-husband review team, wrote a he-said-she-said review on this topic. In part, they reported that:
This book was different from its predecessors, even with the character continuity. No nuclear submarines this time, nor potentially world-ending wars between the great powers, but still a cracking good read…
It always warms the cockles of our withered author hearts when we hear from a first-time reader of our work, like this review from Riall N:
This is my first novel by this team of authors, and it didn’t disappoint. The characters are realistic and convincing, and the action moves swiftly across multiple theaters, building to a very satisfying conclusion. I’ll be looking for more.
Welcome to the party, Riall, and more you shall have! If you enjoyed this one, then you’re going to love the rest of the catalog.
R Kolan is not a first-timer, but he had some comments that are well worth sharing:
This will probably wind up being the best book that I’ve read this year, action, realistic characters, and plots. I had a hard time putting this book down to take a break. If you never read a BORG novel before this is an excellent one to start with.
We can tell this reviewer is an insider because he called it a BORG novel. No, it’s not the galaxy-gobbling villains in Star Trek, BORG stands for the Bruns-Olson Readers Group. If you want to take this reader-writer relationship to the next level, consider this an invitation.
There’s a balance to writing a novel like Alpha Strike. On the one hand, the story has to be realistic. We’ve all had the frustrating experience of being kicked out of a good story by an erroneous detail.
That said, too much realism is the kiss of death. Real life is boring most of the time. In a novel, the action has to capture and maintain a reader’s attention. That requires relentless forward motion and careful choices about which details to include and which to leave on the cutting room floor. Reader Colonel Chuck says it this way:
When I pick up a thriller, I always look for realism, believable tradecraft, and smart leadership dynamics. Alpha Strike hits the mark. With its focus on high-level executive decisions, CIA Special Activities, and special ops, the operational tension feels entirely grounded.
Trust us, sticking that landing is harder than it looks.
Michael W Budd reminds us there’s another element to realism that we speak about often. He describes the moment in the story when Don Riley calls on an unconventional asset to…
handle this off the books rescue mission. But it comes at a price. A very steep price.
That price is the theme that runs through and binds all of our stories.
It’s tempting to watch a professional actor or athlete turn in an amazing performance and think, I could do that.
Probably not. You are watching thousands of hours of practice compressed into seconds of top-level performance.
It’s the same with our military or intelligence services. It’s tempting to hear about a highly successful military strike or declassified covert action and assume that success was a given.
It’s not. Ask anyone who has ever served and they will tell you how many hours they drilled on the same thing, day in and day out, so that in the moment when that skill is required, it’s muscle memory. They’ll also tell you about many, many times when, despite hours of training, a situation went catastrophically sideways.
But the real difference lies in the stakes. The stakes for the athlete are a win or loss, the stakes for the servicemember are life and death.
In nearly every military operation, someone doesn’t come home. Someone is paying the bill—and it’s usually a name you don’t recognize. But we can guarantee that unrecognized name had loved ones who will feel that loss for the rest of their lives.
Every mission has a cost.
That’s what our books are about. Still.
Your feedback helps us find new readers. If you’d like to leave a review, we’d love to hear your thoughts.
Leave a review for ALPHA STRIKE
As always, thanks for being a supporter –
David & JR
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As an author releasing a new book, it feels like you talk about the book ALL THE TIME. But the reality is that every email or post we do is only seen by a fraction of the people who follow us, so it is entirely possible that you haven’t heard about Alpha Strike yet.
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