Great romantic read with low drama. Fast paced novel with a great build world. Perfect read for an afternoon. Arc provided by Netgalley

My first book from this author I was definitely captivated with the spies and possible espionage in MI6. She compelled her readers to soak in every detail to avoid missing the path she laid out before her to find the answers only one man could possibly tell in a race against the clock.

I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would but it was still a good read. Just not one I would revisit.

Small town police officer Emma Ross loves her simple life––but it takes a hard turn into crazy when she’s kidnapped by MI6 and is put under the protection of an over-bearing, albeit sexy, Scotsman. A man who believes she’s lying to protect her father—a father whom she had no idea worked for British Intelligence and is now missing.
This was a great action story that caught my interest right from the beginning. It keeps moving from start to finish and is a quick-paced read. I really liked both characters as they try to solve the mystery and start to fall for each other. I highly recommend.
**I voluntarily read and reviewed this book

This was an interesting one? The copy and book didn't quite match, and I was surprised by how little time the hero and heroine actually spent getting to know each other--his guilt over potentially killing her father felt a bit forced as a result. I did like the team set-up though and of course spies!

Oh goodness, this book! So many twists and turns, so many betrayals (and possible betrayals), so many ups and downs--even though Emma and Macknight (I don't remember anyone calling him Liam, ever--though to be honest, my head is still spinning a bit after finishing this one, so I might have forgotten) do fall in love pretty quickly, it's hard to blame them with everything else that is going on all around them. Either way, they don't act on it quickly, which gives me hope for their HEA--providing they both survive long enough to enjoy one.

Their profession doesn't exactly promote longevity, after all...

Regardless--Spies! Secrets! Double-agents! Danger! Romance!--this one has it all, and I'm hopeful with how everything (finally!) turns out here. As long as you're okay with spending pretty much the whole time you're reading it with an elevated bpm, give London Calling a read :)

Rating: 4 stars / A-

I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

The first chapter is so graphic and overstimulating of the senses. I couldn’t read any further, this is just not the type of book I enjoy reading.

London Calling is definitely a good book. First I've read by Veronica Forand but not the last. Overall i liked the plot and the story. Well-written and good.

Slow start but loved in the end.
It took me a while to get into this book. Most books I can ready in a day or 2 but this one took me almost a week. I think I was expecting to get into the relationship of the 2 main characters sooner. They had interaction but you were not sure it would lead to romance right away. Once I did get into the story, it was a great story. I liked the action and suspense of it all. I liked that I thought I knew what was going on and who was who, but then there would be a twist and someone you thought was a good guy was actually working for the bad guys. I also liked that it was written from the perspective of both the main characters. I do wish it would have maybe told you at the start of each chapter who's pov you were reading. Once I realized it was changing every chapter or so, it was not difficult to follow. Overall It was a great read and I would recommend if you like action, drama, suspense, and/or romance books.

I've meant to type up this review for a while now, but I always hate typing up lower than 3-star ratings. I was excited to read London Calling because I was looking for something different to read other than other books I've read in the Romantic Suspense genre lately. This was my first book from author Veronica Forand too. The synopsis intrigued me when I read it, so I jumped on the chance to read the book.
Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this book like I thought I was going to when I started reading it. The first chapter alone I felt lost because the author immediately started the story out with an explosive scene. I was confused because I thought I was going to be introduced to the characters at first, but I didn't feel I even got that in the story.
I didn't connect well with the characters at all in the story too. I usually can connect within the first few chapters or at least within the middle of the book but not in this book. The male character was still shocked with what happened to his partner in the first chapter, and he was forced to protect (and kidnap) the female lead character. There was no real romance, or if there was, I didn't feel it at all with the characters. I thought they should not have hooked up together because they didn't mesh well with each other.
Here's the gist of the story without giving too much away. Liam Macknight's partner was assassinated while on a mission, and now he's been told to kidnap Emma Ross due to her father being taken by the Russians that was supposed to be helping him and his partner. He thinks her father turned on them and now he thinks Emma may know something to and he can't trust her. Although, he has to protect her from the Russians. Emma has no clue what is going on and what her father was into, and she wants to find her father. She's in for a whirlwind of craziness with Liam and the MI6 though.
I'll say this about the story. There is a lot of action, and poor Emma is put through the wringer. I felt sorry for the woman throughout the whole story. I wish I could've loved this story and I wish I could've loved the characters more. It thinks if the characters would've been more lovable toward each other, then I would've enjoyed it more.
As I said, there was no real romance in the story. I would consider this more of a spy-filled, action-packed tale. I'm hoping this is part of a series because the author did have other characters in the series that were introduced.
I may not have enjoyed the story, but other readers may enjoy the storyline though.
Story Rating: 2.5 stars
Standalone or part of series: I believe this book may be part of a series, but not too sure at this time.
Do I recommend this book? If you enjoy action-packed books. There's not much of a romance element in this book though.
Will I read other books from the author? I'll definitely check out other books written by Veronica Forand.
Tropes/Elements: Action-Packed; Thriller; Spies

If you love a little espionage with your romance you are going to love this book. Emma has no idea what her father is into and is caught in the middle of his drama. When she is kidnapped by MI6, she is determined to find out just what is going on. Liam has tried everything to keep her safe and has no choice but to work with her. But things heat up when he is given the directive to kill her father to protect the identity of other agents. How will this play out in the end? I voluntarily agreed to receive an ARC of this book for an honest review.

This is a book of suspense wit ha bit of romance. Top secret agents, travel from the US to London. People with high protection what else can you want. This story is top caliber and it is worth every minute you are reading it.

** I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for a honest review**

This was a slow building book and it sets up a great suspense romance. I did have a hard time with the characters in the beginning. Their didn't seem to be a lot of chemistry between them other than animosity. Things changed and boy did it make up for the beginning.

The book was an entertaining read with a good dose of excitement and a wonderful romance. I would recommend this to anyone who likes a well built, suspenseful romance.

A thrilling story with a kick-butt heroine and a hero who finds himself attracted to her even though he shouldn't be.

I normally don't read romantic suspense books, but the blurb sounded really interesting. I have to admit I was expecting a bit more romance, but it makes sense that the focus is really on the agents and their race against time to figure out what happened.

It took me a little while to really get into the story, but once I did I enjoyed the characters and story. It is pretty intense, and I did feel it was a bit too long, but overall a fun read!

London Calling gets off to a strong start worthy of a Mission Impossible movie. The action and intrigue stay strong throughout, but the slow burn romance didn’t work as well for me. Both characters run hot and cold long past the point you’d expect them to have started some kind of a relationship. I think I would have liked the story better had it actually been an action movie where you expect a little Insta-Love. In a 400 page novel, there should have been time to develop the romance plot.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2716839237

Ms Forand has never disappointed in the novels that she writes. Her character's are attention grabbing from the start. London Calling is a not to be missed and a must addition to your reading list.
Review copy received from Entangled Publishing via Netgalley

As a romantic suspense fan, I had high hopes for this based on the description, but unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. Frankly, I would really have to classify this as "suspense" with a little romance thrown in for good measure. There was really no focus on "the relationship", which is the hallmark of what defines a "romance". I felt as if the author tried too hard to build the sexual tension with an "enemies-to-lovers" based attraction right out of the gate that just seemed forced too early on. Additionally, their relationship didn't seem to grow organically. Emma and Macknight are hot and cold – almost distractedly so. One minute they're describing some minor physical attraction and the next, they're hugging each other tenderly? Throughout the story, they talk about caring for each other, but I didn't see any evidence of an opportunity for those feelings to have developed.

As a reader, I never felt connected or engaged with Emma or Macknight. Emma turns out to be a bit of a "Mary Sue" - she's a sniper-level marksman, a world-class poker player, she's fluent in Russian – which is kind of annoying. And Macknight just never came across as the kind of guy I'd want to fall for/have fall for me.

As for the mechanics of the storytelling, there were some vague comments as to time passing, but for the most part, I had no sense as to whether this took place over the course of days, weeks or months. Because the book was almost all "tell" and no "show", I'm guessing that in conjunction with the vague timeline helped contribute towards my feeling disconnected from the characters.

The "suspense" part of the story was not bad, and had the rest of the story been executed better I think it could have been a decent spy thriller.

*Advance copy provided by NetGalley. All opinions are my own.*

Billed as a romantic suspense, this one is heavy on the suspense and light on the romance. The heroine, Emma, is an American police SWAT officer whose tidy world is upended when she’s called to the UK because her father has gone missing while working for his Big Oil boss. Only it turns out he’s been an MI6 agent all along and now the Russians have him. MI6 must hide Emma to prevent her being used against her father, and that’s where Liam Macknight comes in. Macknight was right there when the bomb went off, his teammate died, and Edward Ross vanished. His suspicious nature leads to him trusting literally nobody, and he always jumps to the worst possible conclusion with information at hand - possibly a useful survival trait for an active operative, but hardly conducive to good romance fodder.

In some ways Emma was fantastic, in that she flatly refused to take things lying down, but her transformation from regular cop to a superwoman who beats trained snipers at shooting, espionage agents at chess and solo escapes from MI6 custody. There were parts where it felt very much like the author was taking a dig at other authors in the genre, where Emma thinks to herself “Only in a fantasy would a woman crave sex with her captor while imprisoned in a basement. Nothing was romantic about a relationship with a screwed-up power dynamic.”

There’s a great deal of truth to that, at least in real life, but knocking other people’s fantasies is tacky at best - and hypocritical besides, because Emma absolutely does start falling for Macknight in this screwed-up power dynamic. Or at least, claims she does, because I couldn’t remotely see why, or sense any chemistry between the two of them.

British spies talking with American accents and terminology is just one of the many, many things that annoyed me about this book. For a story which claims to be a romantic suspense, there’s precious little romance and far too many pointed digs at the genre - a huge mistake when there are bound to be lots of fans OF that genre reading this book. This had loads of potential with an intriguing premise, but the author fell into a lot of pitfalls along the way and I finished the book feeling thoroughly dissatisfied. One star.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review through NetGalley.

Having read one other book by this author and liking her writing when I seen this it called to me. The plot of this one is the sort I eat up especially when really good. Emma and Liam take you on this adventure with you wanting to buckle up for the ride. The chemistry and stubbornness is just part of the deliciousness of this one. The questions that come along with your going along to get the answers fast. The most fabulous thing of this that is sometimes becoming rare is that is full of the story without alot of erotica when it comes to the interaction between the two characters. Romance is wonderful it is why I read many I do but sex is between and no two alike so getting not a blow by blow of it refreshing in this action romance. She knows how to keep us dangling but also race our blood but give us a excellent run.

Despite having issues with men and guns on the covers of my romance novels, this spy/intrigue romantic suspense with an enemies to lovers/forced proximity element and a cover model with an undercut prompted me to give it a try. However, I would liken my reading experience to watching a pulpy action movie. Sure, it’s fun, but one look at the details and it all falls apart.

If you’re a reader who prefers their romantic suspense on the lighter side, this book will not be for you. It is graphic in its descriptions of violence, and there is a body count that includes more than just the bad guys.

London Calling opens with Liam Macknight and his two MI6 partners, Owen and Lucy gearing up for a mission that goes horribly wrong. They’re meeting operative Edward Ross, who is supposed to put them in contact with a potential spy. Liam’s best friend and close partner, Lucy, ends up assassinated when a bomb goes off at the meeting place. Ross has disappeared and Macknight isn’t sure if Ross has double crossed them or if he’s been captured.

Emma Ross (Edward’s daughter) is a small town cop in New Hampshire. When British authorities contact her about her father’s disappearance, she flies across the pond to figure out what’s going on. But MI6 doesn’t want her help. Instead, they want to use her to figure out where her father potentially could have gone. She’s kidnapped by MI6 and sent to a safehouse to keep her away from any potential dangers, while Liam susses out how much she knows.

Emma knows nothing. Seriously. She thought her father worked for BP, but it was just a cover for what he was doing for MI6. He’d travel under the guise of “oil business,” but he was really networking to find spies for MI6, with an emphasis on finding people willing to give up Russian government secrets.

Liam automatically dislikes Emma because she’s related to the man he thinks murdered his partner. Throughout the book, several of Liam’s colleagues speculated that he loved Lucy, but never acted on his feelings, and I definitely had that impression too. Sure, Lucy and Liam had been working together for years and a high stress job can breed close relationships. But the severity in which he mourned Lucy throughout the book seemed more than platonic and was, for me, an insurmountable obstacle for a romance fresh after Lucy’s murder.

At times, Liam daydreams about Lucy and the memories they shared, which I think is perfectly normal when it comes to grief. Owen is the one who makes me question the romantic versus platonic relationship of Lucy and Liam. Owen was injured in the blast that killed Lucy. The three of them worked closely together for years. But we don’t get to see Owen’s processing and grief because he isn’t the hero. And when I compare what I know of Owen/Liam’s relationship to Lucy/Liam and Owen/Lucy, there was a lot more detail I needed to know before buying the “we were just friends” explanation from Liam. I felt this, even more so, when Lucy becomes the standard to which Liam compares Emma.

When it comes to the details of the plot and ensuing action scenes, a lot of important things are just accepted as fact. Emma doesn’t question who the hell the people who called her to England are. She just walks in, wanting to know what’s going on with her dad. There’s no “wait a second” moment, after traveling to another country to meet three strangers who her father has literally never mentioned.

There are explosions and car chases and gun fights. All of which seem to happen in a bubble. It reminds me a lot of superhero movies, where a city is destroyed by the hero’s fight against a big bad. It’s all very exciting, but there’s this small part of me wondering, who is going to pay to fix all this damage. Surely the media would be curious about gun fight and car chase happening on a busy motorway. Right? RIGHT?!

As I mentioned in one of our recent discussions, one of my favorite tropes is “enemies to lovers.” I love the snarling antagonism that gives way to angry pants feelings. There was none of that here. It was more of a fizzle to lovers, if that makes any sense. Less than twenty-four hours after being kidnapped to a safehouse, Liam and Emma are trying not to ogle one another in darkened hallways. It almost becomes slapstick-ish in a way, with Emma frequently slipping or tripping on something and Liam reaching out at the perfect second to pull her into his arms.

The repetition of scenes like that was at “oh boy” levels, and it wasn’t good repetition.

When it comes to a book with a lot of characters or moving parts, I’d be okay with reiterating the tangled web of MI6 relationships, of who reports to whom, their roles, and the like. Instead, there are consecutive mentions of superfluous details (emphasis mine):

“I [Emma] was born in Greenwich. We moved to the United States right after my mother died,” she said, her answer whispered and her gaze off somewhere, lost in memories.

“You sound American.”

“Kids are mean. I was bullied and mocked so much, I adapted. Better to blend than be beaten down.” Her focus drifted back to the contest of the bowl on the counter.

He nodded, trying to seem sympathetic. “How did your mother die?”

“A car accident. We moved after she died.” Her thumb played with the gold ring on her finger.

The death of a parent is a huge event in someone’s life and can often be a defining moment for a character, but it’s not something a reader is likely to forget. Especially after learning it a few sentences prior.

Though there was nothing egregious about either main character, both were so steadfast in their convictions. Their constant butting heads, usually about one singular issue, became tedious. Emma insists her father would never lie to her or hurt anyone, despite evidence that he was a secret British agent. Meanwhile, Liam is certain Emma’s father is responsible for his partner’s horrific death, making Emma an enemy by association.

Do I have any good things to say about this book? I know I’ve done a lot of complaining, but I don’t really know if I have a definitive answer because overall the book was just kind of...fine. Those are always the toughest to talk about. There were secondary characters that I truly enjoyed, like Grace, an older woman who runs the safehouse. I would read an anthology told from Grace’s point of view about all the people who have come and gone under her care.

[spoiler]But even my fondness for Grace is short-lived because she’s killed during the events of the book.[/spoiler]

If I could have turned my brain away from nitpicking, this would have been a better reading experience. But since my anxiety is rather high at the moment, all I could see were the missed opportunities and half-baked scenarios. I thought way too hard about all the little things. By the time the story reached peak romantic suspense climax, I didn’t have enough interest to care.