GREAT book, quick to read and couldn't put down. Great characters, twisting plot and fab story. Would recommend to all.

Good story with a good plot and suspense. The author was able to provide good detail to the story to keep the reader engaged.

Nine Lives is the first book in the Sam Archer series about a young Counter-Terrorism officer from London., and was first published in 2012. I got a free copy during an Amazon promotion about a year ago, and had gradually acquired several more from the series, also free, but I have a lot of free books waiting for me (and bought ones!) so it was likely to take a while. I saw it as a Read Now on NetGalley, liked the sound of the summary, and knew that would boost it up my TBR. (I prioritise NG books as I know it costs authors a fair bit to get them listed, but also it means they’ve been through at least one filter.) I love a good action thriller and this delivered from the very start, so I’m very pleased to have most of the rest of the series waiting for me.

Sam Archer is the newest member of the Armed Response Unit, set up to act like a British version of a SWAT team, to fight the ever increasing threat of terrorism within the UK. The team, a loyal group of tough former military and policemen, have been warned that a cell is about to stage an attack in London on New Year’s Eve, so must do whatever it takes to stop them. Meanwhile a vicious Arabic cartel leader arrives in Paris with a plan of his own, but the DEA are on his trail, and will do whatever it takes to catch him, even if it gets in the way of the ARU’s mission...

This was like a whole season of 24 rolled into one book - in a good way. Archer is an appealing hero - modest but confident in his own abilities, and refreshingly undamaged. There are psychopathic villains, a well rounded team who weren’t there just to be killed off for a change, dramatic countdowns, clever twists and a deeply satisfying ending. All highly unlikely of course and the body count was lower than you’d expect, which again made a nice change - while the stakes were high, Barber doesn’t feel the need to kill squillions of innocents to make his point.

The author is an Australian who has lived in the US so uses quite a lot of Americanisms that jarred a bit in a British book, but the writing was brilliant - he has a very visual story-telling style that works perfectly for this genre. There were a few too many down-to-the-last-second cliffhangers but that’s what works in movies and it certainly kept the tension high. There was violence and some nasty executions, but they were not gratuitous or excessively detailed.
It’s an impressive first novel and I look forward to seeing how the series progresses.
My thanks to NetGalley for the free review copy. Nine Lives is available now.

Nine Lives by Tom Barber – 2 Stars
Publisher: BooksGoSocial
ISBN: 9781478172895

Sam Archer. Who would have guessed that Sam was the key character and foundation for the Series? Neither he nor other main characters were ever developed fully to capture your interest. Plus, with a story that read like a series of headlines, that is, event after event, all similar with same expected outcomes, and nothing around them, the result was undoubtedly a very bland novel. If you were looking for “just the facts ‘Mam” repeated again and again, you got it. Yes, one could call this intense, but, no, one did not get a story.

This was a free book to review from Netgalley.com. Thus, I expected a copy with incomplete editing. However, this was terrible. There must have been 50+ errors where words were split or run together with other words per page. One’s mind adapts to this and reading continued on regardless. Thus, editing was not considered in the rating.

Much of the story was unrealistic and implausible. Some would view this as a requirement for intensity. For me it became a deterrent to continue. I struggled to about 50% before I began to read one sentence per page with my eyes focused on the middle of the page. Didn’t miss a thing! At 80% I gave up and could care less how it ended.

I don’t know whether this was just the first in a Series or the author’s first ever. I’m leaning toward the latter and had no interest to even look it up. Sorry, let it suffice to state that I found this novel a flop.

Reviewer: Rich

When I first started reading Nine Lives I really did not have any expectations about the book. The storyline intrigued me and since I received this ARC I figured it was worth reading. Well, let me tell you it was the best decision!!

Nine Lives by Tom Barber is so riveting you cannot put the book down until the very end. It is engrossing, thrilling, suspenseful and full of twists and turns. The ending will definitely surprise you and obviously leaving you wanting more. Now that I know there are more books in the series, I can’t wait to read book 2.

As this is an ARC, the only thing I recommend is there be some divider when you go from one storyline to the other. For me, I had to go back and read the last few sentences in the previous paragraph to realize the following paragraph was talking about someone else.

However, that is easily fixed. Overall, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a great suspense novel. I would really love to see this in the movies, Jack Ryan watch out you have competition!!