The Night Is Mine (The Night Stalker) [Mass Market Paperback]

The Night is Mine by M. L. Buchman has got to be the lightest-weight military-oriented romantic suspense story I've ever read, in spite of the number of times the heroine gets injured. What I'm saying is that I found the story to be a tremendous amount of fun, and I absolutely got sucked way into it the first night, but that I totally checked my reality-meter at the door. And I had a wilder ride than any of the chopper pilots in the story!

Let's start with our heroine. Emily Beale is a Captain in the U.S. Army. This is totally believable. And she is a helicopter pilot. Again, totally believable. She is also a member of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) generally referred to as SOAR, the elite unit that transports Navy SEALs and Delta Force teams in and out of covert missions. In other words, she flies in forward combat operations. I want to believe this is possible, but I don't think we're there yet.

Emily is the first and so far only woman in SOAR. And as the story opens, she and her unit are watching a profile of her that is being played on CNN. In spite of the secrecy that surrounds SOAR, this profile was okayed by "Command". Because Emily is not just an ace-pilot. Her father is a career FBI agent and is now the head of that agency. And when Emily was growing up in the suburbs of DC, the "boy next door" that she had her girlhood crush on, well he's now the President of the U.S. The youngest president ever. And no, he's not Clinton. And Mrs. President sure ain't Hillary.

That CNN profile showed nothing of Emily's piloting skills and everything about how good she looks in her flightsuit and how well she's figured out how to cook in the desert with minimal supplies. Someone back at CNN turned it into a girlie "puff piece". Emily is so pissed she shoots the laptop her unit used to watched the profile. The crew buries the laptop with full military honors and gives Emily the tiny flag.

After the profile runs, Emily gets mysterious orders to report to an aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean, which is not where she wants to be. After two months, she's finally earned her place in SOAR as just another pilot, albeit a damn fine one, and that's how she wants it. All she wants is to fly helicopters. All she wants is to fly. The DC political social whirl is not for her, even if it is the air her mother breathes and the water she swims in like a shark in an aquarium tank. Emily's sure her mother is behind all the machinations as a move to get Emily back to DC and out of the military. Somehow, someway.

But Emily's commanding officer, Major Mark Henderson, sees Emily's mysterious orders and becomes even colder to her than she thought possible. Emily's never quite been able to live up to the Major's expectations of her, as a pilot or as an officer. She's worked all the harder for it. Little does she know that the problem is completely different. Mark Henderson has been bending over backwards to treat her just like any other officer, because he can't see her as anything except the one woman he wants more than any other. So he's just a tiny bit colder and more distant than he needs to be, to keep himself under control--because he barely has any. And one misstep will cost them both their careers.

But Emily's orders are not her mother's doing. The former "boy next door" is now Emily's Commander-in-Chief. He's calling on his best friend to come back to DC and protect the First Lady from repeated, but so far unsuccessful, attempts on her life. Emily is the only one the President trusts.

So Emily goes back to Washington, to the world she left behind, to help her best friend. But President Peter Matthews, back when he was just a Senator, broke her heart when he married another woman, even if he didn't know it. And he's breaking her heart again by taking her away from the life she loves, to save the life of a woman she really doesn't like very much.

And just before she gets on the flight that whisks her away, her commanding officer kisses her goodbye. For real. And Emily nearly breaks his hand and walks away.

So he follows her to Washington, and fakes his way into her secret mission. Then the real fun begins!

Escape Rating B: I started reading this one night at about 11:30, and 150 pages later I was telling myself that I really, really needed to get some sleep. I didn't want to shut my iPad off; but this is a 400 page book, and finishing wasn't realistic. I'll admit I thought about it.

As a character, Emily is a little too good to be true. She's not just an ace pilot, but all her commanders say that she's the best they've ever seen. Her dad being head of the FBI and her childhood friend being President are both integral to the plot, but it stretches belief. DC may be a company town, but that level of connectedness smacks of a Tom Clancy novel. I will say that Clancy's aren't quite this much fun.

What The Night is Mine reminded me of most is Stargate SG-1 fanfiction of the Jack and Sam persuasion. It has the same flavor and the same problem to solve. This is not a criticism, I like Jack/Sam SG-1 fanfic. The issue is that both are in the military, they are in a commander/subordinate relationship and they have to deal with the military frat regs. Jack and Sam are even both pilots, they just happen to be Air Force instead of Army. Faking a relationship for a covert operation that turns real is one of the tropes.

A fun story is a fun story. The Night is Mine is the first book of the author's The Night Stalkers series. Book 2, I Own the Dawn, will be out in August, 2012. A couple of my nights were M. L. Buchman's thanks to The Night is Mine. Looks like a couple of nights in August are pre-booked.

The review that follows is a partial review. To read my full review, please visit: [...]

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What do you get when you combine a high-paced adventure with a sexy SOAR couple and a bit of edge-of-your-seat suspense? One hell of a ride!

Emily Beale, Captain in the rarely heard of SOAR division of the Army, is not a wimpy heroine, nor is she the social butterfly her mother had always hoped for. Instead, she's a tough woman, strong. One who knows what she wants (to fly) and does whatever is needed to accomplish it. As the only woman in a male-dominated career, she's had to work her a$$ off--literally--to get where she is. It's not easy earning the respect of the me she works with. But she's found that a good a$$-kicking or two goes a long way to helping to smooth the road...

I loved Emily's character. She was talented and smart, brave and motivated--she knew what she wanted to do and she didn't let anyone stand in her way. I can respect that. She was also a more complex character, I came to realize,with a few surprises up her sleeves. She's definitely not your typical blonde (no offense to anyone!) nor is she your usual heroine. And yet this fit, because she was herself, pure and simple.

Major Mark Henderson, aka "The Viper", has a reputation for being tough. He never jokes, he never makes a mistake, and he rarely compliments one of his men--even when they do their job correctly. But Emily brings out all of these things in him. Not a good thing when showing any interest in her can get him court-marshaled! Oh, but it would be so tempting, just to be able to kiss her--just once. But when he does, he realizes that once will never be enough....

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This review is property of TBQ's Book Palace (The_Book_Queen).

Captain Emily Beale may have been born to fly, but she CHOSE to both be the best and fly the best. She's the only woman to ever qualify to fly with the Night Stalkers, the Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR), flying Black Hawk helicopters in combat in service to her country. In achieving that goal she's fought tirelessly to be perfect, to fit into a world where only men dare tread, fighting more than a war - battling stereotype and prejudice just as fiercely.

She is a triumph and a credit to her country. It's all she has ever wanted to be. So when Emily is suddenly pulled from her division and brought stateside for a security detail that equates to little more than babysitting the First Lady of the United States, Emily is...less than happy for several reasons. Not the least of which is that she can't turn down a direct request from her Commander in Chief, even though she grew up with him.

Still, she's not the only one fuming over her new assignment.

Major Mark "Viper" Henderson is furious when his best combat pilot is yanked from his command by his superiors without so much as a by-your-leave and little in the way of explanation, apology, or information. He respects the hell out of Beale's skills with a Hawk and there isn't another pilot he trusts more to get the job done. Her reassignment will create a hole where her talent once shone.

And he shouldn't have kissed her. That wasn't the brightest move he's ever made. Not only because it was the height of impropriety and broke several significantly punitive regulations, but because it was motivated by a painful ball of frustration, fear, and fantasy that he's worked hard to keep under wraps. Plus, now that he's tasted her, felt her against him, he has memory to add to his dreams and imagination. Memory of the woman he loves and can never have.

He shouldn't have kissed her. But despite knowing that to be true, it doesn't stop him from digging to find out where she's been sent, and it doesn't prevent him from calling in every favor he's owed to rush to her side when he gets word that she's in trouble. Not even the mighty force of the U.S. military can keep him from her when he finds out there's a killer out there, one who sees Emily as nothing more than collateral damage. And very expendable.

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I debated reading this book. Prejudice almost had me dismissing it out of hand. I'm sad to say I don't have a lot of trust in male authors when it comes to writing romance fiction that works for me. I have my reasons. Combining those reasons with a lack of interest in the military elements of this story made me more than a little leery to pick this up.

I'm sorry about that...you know...NOW. Mea Culpa, mea maxima culpa! I loved this book! Pulse-pounding action, danger, wicked suspense...great characters, intense emotion, hot sex, conflict, gunfire, helicopters... Wow, what a rush!

From the opening scene, I adored Emily. What a perfect way Buchman had of slamming his readers into her life and addressing head-on several of the very prejudices and unlikely conveniences that would make this book more than a little implausible in both concept and construct. And it was implausible. Almost ridiculously so on more than one level throughout the book, if not downright impossible without resulting in several criminal charges and possibly a court-martial or two.

I had no illusions about that when I was reading. Come on, the list of highly unlikely events, circumstances, defining moments, and character traits stacked up higher than the Washington Monument. It was just such a kick-ass read I couldn't find it in me to care overmuch. Seriously, I know I should have cared, I know I usually do care, but in this book I enjoyed the read despite it all (though it did affect my rating).

It was Emily and Mark. I loved both of them. Emily from the moment she shoots the laptop and Mark from the moment he showed up and spent the night in absolute silence. Okay, okay, I entertained lusty, deliciously impure thoughts about his fine self long before that, but that's when I fell in love with the guy. And together? Now that's what I call chemistry.

The story was great, too. Taking the book at face value, the characters were layered and nicely fleshed out and the plot was complex and had nice balance. The romance threads were laden with emotion, tension, and passion, with some impressive areas of genuine relationship conflict from both internal and external forces.

The suspense was solid throughout the book, but faltered a bit for me during the revelation stages of the conflict resolution. The motivations and disclosed endgame of the characters involved didn't exactly wow me with its Master Criminal-level of intellect. Seemed an awful lot of high-risk gyrations to go through to end up in mostly the same place, really. But that didn't detract from how pleased I was with the main characters' journey in uncovering the truth. Very nicely done.

Let me be honest, I still have that prejudice about male authors writing romance to my taste. It's long-standing and dug in through years of personal experience. Not much I can do about that. There is one thing I plan to do, though...read the next book in The Night Stalkers series when Buchman has it available. Call it my civic duty or something. That works.

Disclosure: An ARC of this book was provided to me by Sourcebooks Casablanca publisher Sourcebooks via NetGalley. This rating, review, and all included thoughts and comments are my own.

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Reviewed for One Good Book Deserves Another.