Synopsis: Remy Begnaud has an unwanted gift: the ability to control a storm’s fury. Now, ACRO, a covert agency that seeks to help people with special powers, has sent para-meteorologist, Haley Holmes to seduce Remy and recruit him to their cause. Unfortunately, another rival agency is also in the running but their purposes are far more sinister, and Haley must contend both with them and her growing feelings for Remy if she is to help him master his extraordinary abilities before they destroy him.
Review: This book has the kernels of a strong mythology and an interesting paranormal plot focusing on X-Men like characters. However, the sexually explicit descriptions have a tendency to overshadow the story.
The characters, both primary and secondary, are well developed. Remy and Haley have interesting back-stories and great chemistry. However, it is the characters in one of the two additional side stories that really drew me in: Annika and Creed, whose sizzling relationship continues and develops in the next two installments. I was not as enamored of Dev’s story.
Overall, the writing duo of Stephanie Tyler and Larissa Ione (of Demonica fame) have fashioned an intriguing world of action, suspense and passion. Even though I enjoyed the book, I think that the sex scenes become repetitive and could have been toned down a bit. Let’s see what happens in the next book.
Yes, there was a lot of sex, but it fit and it made sense!
This book featured a former Navy Seal named Remy Begnaud who seemed to have a connection with the weather. It scared his father and the people in his Louisiana community thought he was cursed and evil. An agency similar to the X-men, ACRO (Agency for Covert Rare Operatives) wanted Remy to join them so they can harness his power and make sure it was used for good. They sent a parameterologist Haley Holmes to investigate his powers and then “bring him into the fold”. What Haley wasn’t counting on was that the weather brought out Remy’s sexual nature, and Haley found herself caught in the middle of the “storm”. It was a very erotic ride and I enjoyed it. It wasn’t sex for the sake of sex, it fit into the story. It really felt like I was reading an episode of X-Men, which I love. The writing wasn’t crass and it wasn’t slow. I read the book in less than two days. I look forward to reading book 2 and learning more about both ARCO and their evil counterpart ITOR.
Riding The Storm is the first book of the ACRO series and I have seen this author around for quite a while but I have to admit that I steered cleared of it because quite honestly of the sexual content. Until the past year or so I haven't really delved into erotic romance that much, its just not my normal cup of tea but I have become hooked more into the genre and so I added this title into my "Romance-opoly"Reading challenge and I have read so many MIXED reviews on these books so I was really on the fence about whether or not to pick it up and it has been sitting on my kindle for quite a while. But I figured I really needed to grab this one up. And I have to say this was one WILD SEXY ROMP of a ride but I had a fun time with it.
Riding The Storm is a story of a ACRO agent, Haley Holmes. She worked for a division that is secret, but quite a large organization where different agents have pschic/paranormal abilities of some kind. Haley is sent to recruit Remy Begnaud who lives in Louisiana. Remy has been cursed by his gift most of his life. He never felt loved or appreciated growing up and unfortunately "mother nature" haunts him on a regular basis. He can work storms of any kind with just a though but whenever a storm happens, he needs sexual release during it. And it isn't until Haley invades his home that he is able to connect with another human being in a way he hasn't before. But their lives are in danger with an enemy of the ACRO wants Remy's abilities and will do anything to get access to them.
Riding The Storm was quite a unique storyline and I admit I had a blast with the set up of the story. Now first off the book starts off slow!! I wasn't sure what to expect with this novel, but I think I was expecting something more fast paced but it did pick up speed for sure. I do want to give fair warning there is a LOT of sex in this book. Now, granted, its well written sex scenes, some of the best I have read, BUT it probably covers almost half of the book so readers do need to be prepared for it. However, despite the amount of sex that is played out in the story, there is an emotional depth I wasn't expecting to find. I found it quite amazing actually to see how this duo writing team was able to make a book so HOT yet have quite a bit of depth and paranormal fun to it.
The relationship that builds between Remy and Haley was unique in that Haley is there on a secret mission of sorts and wants no emotional connection to anyone and Remy has desired a emotional connection more than anything in his life even though on the surface it seems he is consumed by sex. So they are definite opposites in that. Remy is pure alpha male while Haley is pure feminist in many ways (although thankfully she isn't the toxic kind I see too much in romance) but she does view relationships differently and she gets a wake up call in finding that loving someone doesn't weaken you....only adds more to you not less and it makes one stronger.
Overall I found Riding The Storm to be a powerful yet inviting and highly sensual read that will keep you up late at night reading till the conclusion....gravitating and sensifying.
I started this series because I saw a more recent release from this series on That's What I'm Talking About. When I saw that [a:Larissa Ione|375143|Larissa Ione|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1221675980p2/375143.jpg] (who I love) was half of Sydney Croft, I decided that this needed to be on my list ASAP. Reading the post on Jen's site, but not for the first book, I really didn't know what I was getting into. Needless to say, I was a little shocked when I got just a few pages into the book, it was much more X-rated than I'm used to for PNR.
Remy was adopted as a child. He doesn't know anything about his birth parents other than he was born in the middle of a hurricane and left in a small town in the bayou. He is fresh out of the Navy SEALs. He affects the weather, but has pretty much no control over this power. Haley was raised by two parents who were basically hippies. They didn't even give her a name until she picked one at the age of four. Haley is a parameteorologist, which is why she is chosen to bring him in.
This story is X-rated, X-Men crossed with X-Ops. (Notice the triple X, that wasn't an accident.) You have two groups of supernaturals (think of Xavier's and Magneto's different teams). They send in Haley to "recruit" Remy. I put recruit in quotes, because he was to be brought in by any means necessary to keep him away from the bad guys. Remy is even taught how to seduce her way in because Remy cannot control his sexual urges during storms. Problem is that the bad guys really want him too. I mean, who doesn't want the ability to control the weather?
There is also a side story between Creed and Annika, two other operatives for ARCO as they investigate a haunted house with an angry ghost. Creed is a ghost hunter and Annika has some unique abilities with electricity. Then there is Devlin, who is the blind leader of the group. He has sex with multiple different people, including another man, which I wasn't expecting in this book.
I was a little surprised by this book. It is a paranormal romance by definition, but more like paranormal erotica. The sex starts in Chapter Two and keeps going. Sex is the main plot of the story until about 50% when the bad guys make their appearance. Then the action picks up. While I don't mind sex in my books, I read erotica stories all the time, this book was a little too much for the first half of the book. Once the action started, I really enjoyed the story much more.
I did enjoy this book, but I really hope that the next book has less sex in it (I never thought I would say that). The writing was great and the characters were magnificent. I want to know more about all of them and get more details about their each of their powers. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope that there is less sex. I love good sex scenes, and these are great, but I like action too. I think part of it was that the story took me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a PNR erotica story, which is what it was.
This book has some great supernatural characters with some really unique powers. The characters are very well developed. The world has been well established and I think the stories will only get better now that the world has been built. I love the military/police force investigations that seem to be a part of the story. I'm itching to get to the next book.
In general I thought this book was pretty good. I actually found the side story with Annika and Creed more interesting than the main couple. I was disappointed when I saw none of the later books have them featured. It was also interesting being an X-men fan reading about a Cajun named Remy with superpowers. However instead of controlling kinetic energy he had Storm's powers. I hear the next books get better though and I'm definitely looking forward to them.
