Variant 2 Valor

Number of pages: 277

Formats: ebook, paper

Languages: English

Variant, Valor is the second stand in the Variant series by Sandra R. Neeley, and I leave you the summary here. 

‘Valor survived betrayal, captivity, torture, and DNA manipulation along with his special ops team. Most of the males who survived this testing and restructuring have no memory of who they were beforehand. Valor, however, has repetitive nightmares that are always the same. A female running after him, calling out for him — only she’s calling him another male’s name. She’s desperate, begging for him to wait for her, come back for her, but he doesn’t know her and other than in his dreams has never even seen her. He can’t sleep, he can barely function, and he’s becoming a danger to all who depended on him. Then on the way home from a meeting with military brass, he sees her from the window of the vehicle they are traveling in. He jumps from the vehicle and pursues her, snatching both her and her daughter from a very public grocery store parking lot, and takes them back to Alliance with him.

Becky has struggled for five years to scrape out a life for herself and her daughter. She lost her husband — a special forces soldier — before she ever gave birth to her baby. The military refuses to give her any information at all about the incident that took his life, stating only that he was at first missing in action, then confirmed dead while carrying out a critical mission. Angry and resentful, blaming the military for the death of her beloved husband, she refuses any benefits that she may be entitled to and moves across the country to Texas in an effort to start fresh. It’s hard most days, but she’s managed. Until the day she’s kidnapped from the parking lot of her local grocery store by a man who places a hood over her head and angrily growls commands at her as he shoves not only her, but her four-year-old daughter, repeatedly to the floorboard of the car.

Becky and Valor forged a connection years ago that even memory loss, and DNA manipulation cannot sever. Valor refuses to allow her to leave his side. He doesn’t know who she is, but he does know it is his responsibility to protect her. While at first terrified, Becky becomes furious when she realizes the lunatic who’s kidnapped her isn’t even supported by those associated with him, as they plead for her patience and offer apologies while promising to get her and her daughter home safely. But then she gets a look at him, and both their worlds come to a crashing halt. She knows this man. Her long-dead husband is the lunatic.

Warning: This book is intended for mature audiences. This book contains violence and abuse both real and implied, and sexual situations that may be disturbing for some readers. If you are offended by these subjects, please do not buy this book. While some aspects of this series and the beginnings of the world it is set in are dark, this series is ultimately a tale of survival, revenge, healing, and love.’

What I like about the book

Now for the juicy parts! This book is the second part of the Variant series and tells a tale of love and reunion. We already know the beginnings of the Variant and their society. We know who is who and what are their roles in the story. So Sandra R. Neeley focuses more on the love story than the politics, making this book more relaxed and light-hearted. 

The author focuses on Becky and Valor, but we still see the other characters, including Nina and Maddox, who still seem to be the story’s central point because all the other characters go to them for advice and action plans. They are the ones that make things happen. They protect their team and people and always look out for their happiness. It doesn’t matter if they have to bend the rules a little. 

On the other hand, Valor and Becky’s love story is entirely different because they know each other from another life. Their love withstands the hardships of memory loss, and now they must find one another again. Here, we have an independent woman who will settle for nothing less than what she wants and a male who wants the same. 

So we see them fight and bump heads because they want the same but don’t know how to get it. This keeps you reading because they have suffered enough, and we want to see them happy together. So, the question of whether they would be or not a family again is constantly in your head, and it makes for a fast reading. Trust me, I read it in two days tops. 

What I didn’t like 

I know it is a short book, but it was too fast-paced for me. It left me wanting more, and in the end, it feels like the author is writing quickly because she just has to end the book and move on. And this is confirmed in the epilogue because she tells us the main problem of the next book. We are talking Variant problems here, and in this book, we only focus on Valor and Becky, nothing else, and what we know about them needs to be more. 

Their romance is too fast-paced compared to the first book and the story of Nina and Maddox. Sandra R. Neeley sets a rhythm and simply falls short in this book. But there is the hope of seeing more of them in the following books and, maybe, knowing more that way. 

To whom do I recommend this book? 

This book is for lovers of sci-fi romance, strong female characters, healthy relationships, smut readers, and those who withstand a little hardship to make way for happiness.

IMPORTANT: I recommend reading the first book before reading this one. So, you understand what’s going on.   

About the author 

Sandra R Neeley is an International Best-Selling Author of Paranormal, SciFi, and Fantasy Romances. She is 58 and married, with two children, two grandchildren, a multitude of pets, and is a Self-Published Author. She’s a homebody who prefers her writing/reading time to a crowd. At a very young age she recognized that the stories and fictional characters living in her head, was not something everyone understood. But, after deciding to craft them into books that others could enjoy, surprisingly, people have loved them. Every story will leave you feeling like you’ve been visiting with a long-lost loved one during a respite from reality. A bit of a warning though, there are some “triggers” in her stories that certain people should avoid, so please read the synopsis and warnings supplied with each book before buying.

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