Saturday, August 24, 2013

Critical Mass by Cyrus Keith


Blurb:

Jenna Paine is a super spy, genetically enhanced to be more than human. Nadia Velasquez is a living weapon of mass destruction. When the secret organization who built them both decides they are no longer useful, two enemies are thrown together for the only purposes they could have in common: survival and revenge.

There's only one way out of The Pinnacle, and that's on a coroner's slab. Jenna lives through a treacherous attack vowing to exact her vengeance on the people who trained her to be the most deadly agent on the planet.

Wounded and on the run, she turns to the man who's sworn to make her face charges for her involvement in The Pinnacle's nefarious schemes.

After years spent hiding from The Pinnacle, Nadia runs into the one thing she never counted on: Shelf life. As her body breaks down, she realizes it's only a matter of the short time she has left to redeem her existence and give her daughter a chance to live free.

In the final showdown, the two transhumans join forces against a common enemy, and The Pinnacle comes to know the deadly significance of…

Critical Mass


Review:

Critical Mass is the final installment in the NADIA project series.  The Pinnacle is a shadowy group of king-makers.  Or should I say king breakers?  Their vision of peace on Earth is an Earth united under one government—run by them.  In order to accomplish their goal, they create two transhumans: Jenna Payne and Nadia Velasquez.  Jenna is enhanced to be a super-agent.  Her senses, speed and reflexes are all super-human.  Nadia is a weapon of mass destruction.  Her bones are filled with anti-matter instead of marrow.  The Pinnacle's mistakes?  They allowed Jenna to grow up in a normal environment, and when they downloaded the personality of a dead woman into Nadia's brain, she also received the woman's memories and morals, and when she realized she was a living bomb, she refused to carry out the assassination for which she was designated.  Instead, she vowed to find the members of The Pinnacle and bring them to justice.  Of course, they wanted their multimillion dollar weapon back so they could repair "its" "defects" and send "it" back out on "its" assignment.

I've said it in my reviews of the first two NADIA books and I repeat:  these books are as good as if not better than Tom Clancy's early Jack Ryan books.  I burned through Becoming NADIA, eagerly anticipated and was not disappointed by either Unalive or Critical Mass. Well, I did have that feeling of bereavement at the end of Critical Mass one gets at the end of a really good series when you know you're saying goodbye to characters you've come to know and care about.  It's almost like moving away from your friends.  Oh, you'll keep in touch, but it won't be the same as that everyday kaffeklatch-in-the-kitchen, over-the-fence, Sunday barbecue relationship you've had.  These books are keepers to be read and re-read, even though I know how they turn out.  I'm sure you'll feel the same way.

Length:  323 Pages
Price:  $5.95

You’ll notice I always include the publisher’s buy link.  That’s because authors usually receive 40% of the book price from the publisher.  Editors and cover artists usually receive about 5%.  When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left.  So, if a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author will receive about $2.40.  If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will receive about $0.83.

Downloading the file from your computer to your Kindle is as easy as transferring any file from your computer to a USB flash drive.  Plug the USB end of your chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from your “Downloads” box to your Kindle/Documents/Books directory.  I actually download my books using “Save As” to a “Books” file I created on my computer that’s sorted by my publisher, friends, and books “to review,” and then transfer them to my Kindle from there.  That way, if there’s a glitch with my Kindle, the books are on my computer.  Your author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Thanks for visiting.  RIW

2 comments:

  1. Nice review! I agree CK is a good writer!

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  2. I realize eventually some series' get stale, but I hate to see a good series end. I'll miss the folks in the NADIA series. I'm so honored to be a Muse author when I'm surrounded by people like Cyrus. I can't believe I'm in his company.

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