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Nina Bronson used to be all human — until the experimental surgeries and internal technology that saved her life and enhanced her as a soldier also forced her to leave the army for private service. Now she and her peers are facing slow, painful deaths unless their technology is upgraded, and the one man keeping those upgrades illegal and unavailable is an obnoxious billionaire. A man too gorgeous for his own good.
A man she’s supposed to guard with her life.
Ewan Donahue is the public voice speaking out against the enhancement procedures of injured soldiers. But when his lobbying leads to death threats, he needs someone to protect him around the clock. He doesn’t want to rely on an enhanced soldier—Nina’s tech goes against everything he stands for. But he really doesn’t want her to be beautiful like she is. Doesn’t want her to suffer like she will.
Doesn’t want to succumb to the searing desire he feels for her.
As a series of attacks on his life send them to a remote cabin, their close proximity brings them together in ways they never imagined. They know they must prevent the need simmering between them, resist each other at all costs. But when tensions are high and danger is close, passion burns hottest of all…
Rating: B
I don’t read much sci-fi romance, but I like it occasionally, and when I read one of my fellow AAR reviewers’ take on Dangerous Promise, it sounded really intriguing.
Set in a near future (a date is not specified, but I’m guessing late 21st/early 22nd century), Dangerous Promise introduces readers to kick-ass female bodyguard Nina Bronson, one of fifteen former soldiers who were all ‘enhanced’ using newly invented nano-technology which both saved their lives and has given them greater strength and stamina and the ability to control their physical and emotional reactions and bodily functions. When Nina joined the army at nineteen and signed documents allowing her body to be used in the event of her death, she’d assumed it meant organ donation – not that she’d be brought back from the dead by having a number of nanochips implanted in her brain and nervous system.
Not long after she and her fellow ‘enhanced’ were created and the implications of the tech were fully understood, laws were passed outlawing any further implantations or any further development of the tech. Nina and her fellows are thus the only enhanced humans in existence, and as the tech gradually decays, so will they, as they’ve effectively been denied access to the necessary upgrades.
Billionaire businessman Ewan Donahue is the highest-profile, most vocal of those who oppose the development of enhancement technology, and he’s a very visible target for those who believe the tech should be available to others – especially one organisation who wants to use it to build legions of super soldiers. Being threatened is nothing new to him, but when the number of death threats he receives increases, leading to the deaths of not one, but two of his bodyguards, he approaches the elite ProtectCorps agency and hires Nina as his personal protection.
Both are well aware of the dichotomy inherent in their situation and make no bones about it. But what Nina doesn’t know is that while Ewan now speaks out against the enhancement tech, he’s the one responsible for developing it in the first place. Desperate to help his sister Katie, who was dying of Dementia, he invented and programmed the original software that connected to the brain and nervous system that should have allowed Katie to regain control of her mind and body… but sadly, the breakthrough came too late to save her. After her death, and finally realising the implications of what he’d done, Ewan came back to reality with a thud and realised how messed up it was to want to play god with people’s lives – and made sure the program was shut down.
But their positions on either side of the debate don’t prevent a powerful attraction developing between them. They are together 24/7 and spend a lot of time talking about many different things, including the ethical implications of the enhancement tech and Nina’s very existence. Nina finds Ewan very attractive and her enhanced abilities allow her to work out that that feeling is mutual. She isn’t averse to having a sexual relationship with him and is safe in the knowledge that she can turn off her emotions and just enjoy the sex… but for Ewan, it’s different. He’s come to know and like Nina as a person, and is falling in love with her, deeply and completely. There are a number of superbly-written steamy scenes between them, and before very long, Nina starts finding it more and more difficult to keep herself aloof and begins slowly to open up and allow herself to have the sort of feelings for Ewan she’s never had for anyone.
Of course, the path of true love can never be allowed to run completely smooth, and with Ewan’s secret hanging in the air between them, the book concludes on a dramatic and heart-rending cliff-hanger with the story to picked up in book two, Wicked Attraction.
Ms. Hart establishes the background to her story brilliantly, and her world-building is superb. The earth of the time the book is set is recognisable, but has suffered a second Cold War, environmental disasters as the result of an abortive attempt to colonise the Moon, and something called Gray Tuesday, when an unknown hacker destroyed ninety percent of the world’s servers and back-up data, wiping out bank accounts, personal data and generally causing untold chaos. She also explores the importance of memory to who we are – the nanochips that give the enhanced their increased abilities can also be reprogrammed so parts (or all) of the person’s memory can be erased – and the idea that Nina and those like her are regarded with suspicion and hatred, and that they are somehow ‘lesser’ because of what they have become.
Dangerous Promise is an action-packed, sexy read based on a well-developed and intriguing premise which features two flawed, interesting characters with great chemistry. I’m hooked, and will definitely be snapping up books two and three to find out how everything turns out.
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