No Rules is book one in the Omega Group series -- yet another in the ever popular (at least to me) military-romance sector. Omega Group, like my absolute favs, Titan & KGI, is a group that does jobs Uncle Sam doesn't want to do; most jobs involving hostages.
In this book, you meet the founder's daughter, Jess. She is a children's book author/illustrator with a number of fears and phobias, to which her psychiatrist acredits to the leaving of her father. He left her (or so she believes) and her mother 15 years ago, after his own hostage situation. Jess believes he is a professor in linguistics, a man who enjoys studying heiroglyphics and Egyptian culture. However, after his death, she learns he is actually a part of this group.
She meets Tyler Donovan through unfortunate circumstances -- the reading of her father's will. At first, she despises him -- here is a man who was able to spend time with her father during his last years. He knew all about him and his wants and desires. He had him while she did not. She is furious to learn that while her father's house was willed to her, all of the artifacts (aside from two) were willed to Donovan.
Donovan assures her that after he looks through them all, he will leave them for her -- not that that's much of a consolation. When Donovan doesn't learn what he wants from the items, he is certain that Jess knows something about her father's death -- even if she doesn't realize it.
One evening, he goes to her father's house, of which she's been staying, to scope it out -- earlier that day, at the funeral, an attempt was made at Jess's life and he's positive they will try to strike again. Sure enough, someone is creeping around. After diminishing that threat, he, for all intents and purposes, kidnaps Jess and brings her to Omega's headquarters... in Chicago, miles away.
There, she meets the rest of the team, as well as the other founder -- Evan Lang, whom she knew as Dr. Lang as a child. The team has Jess go over the last time she'd seen her father, which had been the first time she'd seen him in 15 years and was also just days before his death. They want every word spoken and every move made -- sneezing, coughing, ear rubbing... anything and everything could possibly be code for why he was killed.
To the team's disapproval, the only thing that Jess has to offer is that her father continued to go back to a plot on a new children's story she should write. She's certain that he was in stages of dementia. While explaining her books, Avery, a female operative, is decidedly rude toward Jess. When Jess thinks, Screw you, I couldn't help but chuckle, because in her place I'd have certainly flipped Avery the middle finger.
Donovan was a little more cautious towards Jess's feelings than Avery had been, and when he allowed them to just glance over Jess's medical history (because as Avery manages to pry out, it is rather important), I gave him major brownie points. That was the point that I started to like him.
I also knew that even though Avery was quite the bitch, I could feel that Avery and Jess would become tolerable toward eachother -- perhaps in future books, they'll even be friends.
I enjoyed this book -- I enjoy most military romances, let's be honest. I liked how much detail Starr put forth -- it wasn't so much that I got bored, but it was painted enough that I could see the picture while I read it. I did, however, get a little bored in the middle of the book, which is why I ended up giving No Rules a 4 of 5.
Regardless, I look forward to other books in this series! I loved that Donovan pulled Jess out of her fearful bubble, and I loved that Jess really used fear as a safety net -- she really was a kickass kind of lady when she needed to be.
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