Off The Grid by Monica McCarty


Posted July 4, 2018 in review Tags: , ,

Off The Grid by Monica McCartyOff the Grid by Monica McCarty
Pages: 304
three-flames

Series: The Lost Platoon #2
Genres: Romantic Suspense
Setting: Washington, D.C.
Source: ARC, NetGalley
Also in this series: Going Dark
Also by this author: Going Dark
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A hunt for dangerous secrets leads to explosive chemistry in this exhilarating romantic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Going Dark.


A team of Navy SEALs go on a mission and disappear without a trace--they are The Lost Platoon.

Investigative reporter Brittany Blake may have stumbled upon the story of a lifetime in her search for her missing brother. When he seemingly disappears overnight, she refuses to accept the Navy's less-than-satisfying explanation. She begins her own investigation, which leads her to top-secret SEAL teams, covert ops, and a possible cover up...

John Donovan is having trouble biding his time, waiting for his Commanding Officer to figure out who set up their platoon. John's best friend and BUD/S partner, Brandon Blake, was one of the many lives tragically lost in the attack against his team. When Brandon's sister, Brittany, tracks John down, looking for answers, he realizes that she may be their best bet--or bait--for finding out who is targeting SEAL Team Nine.

Off the Grid continues the story of the survivors of the “Lost Platoon” with John, aka Dynomite, and Brittany. John was hiding out as a ski instructor in Finland when he was tasked with convincing Brittany to stop her articles about the lost platoon. Brittany can’t give up on finding out what happened to her brother, Brandon. They had a falling out years before and hadn’t been close, but she knows she has to find out the truth. Obviously, with the identity of the person/persons who sabotaged the SEAL team still unknown, Brittany is digging into dangerous territory for herself and the survivors who are still in hiding.

John is such a manwhore. He and Brittany have a little history and his behavior is just icky. I’m not a fan of the hero who has slept with so many women everyone in his life jokes about it. That does not endear him to me. I admired Brittany’s pluck and determination to get the story, but sometimes she was just making BAD decisions. Decisions that were likely to get her killed or abducted. She isn’t a naive girl, so her behavior sometimes was maddening. There was also a side plot of sorts with Colt and Kate. I REALLY didn’t care for Colt. What a douche.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of Britt or John, the plot is interesting! Trying to figure out who wants to silence Britt, who is helping her, and who is behind all of it was interesting. Because the story is told in 3rd person, the focus isn’t always John and Britt, which actually worked well for me. If you like espionage, government conspiracy, and world travel, Off the Grid might appeal to you!

 

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The Woman Left Behind by Linda Howard, Rescuing Wendy by Susan Stoker, Midnight Rescue by Elle Kennedy…then you will probably like Off the Grid!

 

Off the Grid

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About Monica McCarty

What do you get when you mix a legal career, a baseball career, motherhood, and a love of history with a voracious reader? In Monica McCarty's case, a Historical Romance Author.

Like most writers, I’ve always loved to read. Growing up in California there was always plenty to do outside, but all too often I could be found inside curled up with a book (or two or three). I started with the usual fare: The Little House on the Prairie series, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hobbit, Watership Down, Nancy Drew, and everything by Judy Blume. Once I cleared off my bookshelf, I started swiping books from my mom. Some, like Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight, probably weren’t the most appropriate choice for a pre-adolescent—although they were definitely illuminating. I can still remember the look of abject horror on my mom’s Catholic-girl-face when I asked her what a virgin was. After that rather brief conversation, she paid a little closer attention to what had disappeared off her book shelf, and steered me in the direction of Harlequin and Barbara Cartland romances. I was hooked. I quickly read through the inventory of the local library and was soon buying bags of romances at garage sales.

In high school, with the encouragement of my father (who I think was a little concerned about the steady diet of romances), I read over eighty of the Franklin Library’s One Hundred Greatest Books ever written—including Tolstoy, Confucius, Plato, and the entire works of Shakespeare. Some of them were tough going for a teenager, but the experience would prove an invaluable foundation for college. After reading War and Peace, I wasn’t easily intimidated.

For some reason Monica decided to go into writing and not fashion.

After graduation, I loaded up the VW (Jetta not Bus) and trekked down I-5 to attend the University of Southern California, majoring in Political Science and minoring in English (see why all that reading helped!). I joined the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, and when I wasn’t studying or at football games, did my best to support the local bartending industry. Ah, the good old days.

With that kind of fun, four years of college wasn’t quite enough. So leaving Tommy Trojan behind, I traveled back up north to Palo Alto for three more years of study at Stanford Law School. Once I survived the stress of the first semester, law school proved to be one of the best times of my life—garnering me a JD, life-long friends, a husband, and an unexpectedly intimate knowledge of baseball. (See “The Baseball Odyssey” below).

Law School was also where I fell in love with Scotland. In my third year, I took a Comparative Legal History class, and wrote a paper on the Scottish Clan System and Feudalism. So I immediately dropped out of law school and went on to write Scottish Historical Romances…well no, not quite. You see, I always knew I wanted to be a lawyer. My father was a lawyer, I was a “poet” (i.e., not into math), and I love to argue. It seemed natural.

So I finished law school, got married, passed the CA bar, moved to Minnesota (with a few stops along the way), waived into the MN bar, worked as a litigator for a few satisfying years, moved back to CA, had a couple of kids, realized that a legal career and being a single parent for most of the year (due to husband's career) would be extremely difficult, and THEN decided to sit down and write.

And how did I end up writing romance? It’s not as divergent as it seems. What I loved about being a lawyer are the same things I love about being a writer—research and writing. The only thing missing is the arguing, but that’s what a husband and kids are for, right?

Samantha
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2 responses to “Off The Grid by Monica McCarty

  1. Sorry to hear you didn’t love this one. I didn’t like John being such a manwhore and Colt was an ass, but I’m so hoping Colt and Kate get a HEA. Of course after A LOT of groveling on Colt’s part, lol! Wonderful review, Samantha! 🙂

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