Cassandra Files: Genesis
by Rod Pennington
Integration Press LLC

Boy, this book kept me guessing! Cassie or Cass, is a top Navy pilot and in a long line of decorated Navy family members. On this day her proud grandfather, and decorated and still active Navy Admiral, is going to watch Cass test pilot his new jet. This jet will save billions of dollars! But someone sabotaged the mission.

Several things happened at the same time. A military satellite shot her craft, a congressman is murdered miles away, and her grandfather is killed. She isn't found until 20+ days later on a raft. How did she survive with just a mild sunburn and not being dehydrated?

She didn't know what happened but her grandfather came in after she was rescued and explained. Then the doctors spoke to her. Then she was to be arrested. She knew too much. They didn't believe her about her grandfather, then she finds out he was dead!

The rest of the book is so exciting! How did she know? Where was she after she was blown out of the sky? It is crazy good! She starts having dreams and they come true. Then she has a dream of apocalyptic proportions!

This is such a fantastic book with plenty of humor, suspense, and things you would expect from real people and the government!
I want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for letting me read this terrific book!

Just what I needed recently - a nice tale of corrupt officials getting what they deserve while the good girls win! This is the tale of Cassandra Morse, recently of the US Navy, who acquired a strange gift through the event that ended her career. She can dream the future. So when a newspaper article about her dream powers get published, various officials and agencies take note and act. Then she has another dream. And this is where the NSA, a military contractor, and eco-terrorist cell come together in a thrilling fight. Plenty of characters that jell well in creating a fun thriller. And there is the hint that this is the beginning of a series. Be interesting to see what Cassandra gets into next!

I found this to be an overall enjoyable read and could recommend to it to others. But it is only a 3 star read for me. I liked Cassandra but I thought it really sad that she was portrayed as an almost alcoholic to escape her circumstances - bad dreams. As for her dreams - she has found they foretell future events - oh and they are always bad things about to occur. We jump into a dream where no one wants to listen to her but - wait - there are a couple of people who take her seriously. All good! I just wish we had spent a little more time on her previous dreams. What happened and how and why this has lead to people still not taking her seriously. The story moves quickly to a number of government officials who I found to be a distraction. They ALL wanted a say in this story. Multiple POVs are fine but not every character should be allowed to have one. The plot overall was good and involved the nuclear industry. I worked in that industry for 30 years and really found some of the information questionable. But this is a work of fiction. The cover art is interesting and those ducks are explained in the story. I think the artwork for the cover be more ‘adult’ looking.

Sometimes Cassandra is a comic book character, bigger than life, but she has many frailties also. We start with a strange man approaching Cassandra having recognized her from a photo in the newspaper, and her adventure begins. She was a top gun naval flyer that crashes testing a prototype plane, and now suffers from nightmares that seem to come true in life, but getting people to listen is not easy. Enjoyable non-stop action once it gets going with lots of twists and turns. I'll admit I did start a list of characters as it gets to be many, with good guys and bad guys and those not sure about to keep track of. I have read the author several times before and he writes women well, having met real life overachievers, she is believable. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an enjoyable read.

Cassie is a 4th generation Navy officer, in this case a top gun pilot. When she and her grandfather are blown out of the air while demonstrating a new fighter jet she is feared lost. Washing up after several week, with total amnesia, she iis forced to leave the Navy only to fiind she now seems to have the power of prophecy. Unraveling what that means, and finding those who perpetrated what has happened to her is the basis for this very good and fast moving novel. The clever plot, combined with some well drawn characters including cyberintelligence folks, makes for a great read. I can't wait to read her future adventures

A Piercing White Light Changes Cassandra’s Future

You wouldn’t recognize Cassandra today, she drinks during the day, every day, then heads home to forget, sometimes with a man she met that evening. Before the accident things were quite different.

Lt. Cassandra Morse has the IQ of a genius, is an unequaled jet fighter pilot, and enjoyed a high-flying career. While flying a training exercise in a brand new prototype fighter jet with her grandfather as copilot, a bright object suddenly appears and flies directly into them causing the flight to end up in the ocean. When she is found 20 days later everything has changed. She is drummed out of the military and ignored until she realizes her strange dreams predict future events.

Rod Pennington has written an intricate novel that begins with despair, followed by the highlights of a remarkable career, then tells the story of a woman who fights her way back to respectability through her ability to see into the future. There are a lot of things to like about this book, the main characters are well developed and it is easy to relate to Cassandra’s plight. The one negative being there are so many characters involved that I sometimes had to go back and read a section again to figure out how a particular character fit into the story. I wish I had made myself a list and kept track from the beginning. That being said, I highly recommend this book and I’ll be looking for more written by this author.

I received an Advance Review Copy of Cassandra Files: Genesis from NetGalley and Integration Press, LLC.

This one is a suspense-thriller with a certain Tom Clancy military-tech flavor, which I got as an ARC, and which caught my attention largely because of the vicious-looking rubber ducky on the cover. There are three protagonists, all female, all rather young, and all larger than life.
The first is Cassandra Morse, daughter and granddaughter of admirals, Annapolis grad, one of the very few female combat fighter pilots in the Navy, and on track to make Lieut. Commander before she’s thirty. She’s doing a demo flight of a radical new fighter design for the Joint Chiefs off the California coast when her plane is shot down and she’s presumed lost (along with her grandfather, who was along for the ride). But then she turns up on a life raft, still alive after twenty-two days with no water, and with knowledge she shouldn’t have about the secret weapon that brought her down, so she finds herself under suspicion of espionage, and then cashiered. But she has a new problem: Dreams of pending disasters that come true, and which bring her no end of problems when they’re publicized.
The other focus of the story is the lengths to which the military-industrial complex will go to protect its obscenely inflated military contracts, and the efforts of the assistant director of the “National Intelligence Agency” to keep things under control. And she has a potential new weapon in the person of Carrie Finch, a genius in the field of intelligence. And then there’s Holly Mullen, a similar genius, but of a very different type from Carrie, and with her own agenda.
The plot builds on Cassie’s confusion about her sudden possibly psychic abilities and her desire to find and punish the bad guys, and the author brings in some pseudo-science about the supposed “psychic gene” to avoid sliding into fantasy. It all involves a terrorist plot and a nuclear power station, too, and there’s a good deal of exciting action -- though it comes very close to Wonder Woman level where Cassie is concerned.
All in all, it’s not a bad story, and it appears to be the first in an action series. I was willing to overlook the occasional comic book plotting because the characters themselves are well done and a lot of fun. At the same time, I was put off by the frequent overwriting and problematic vocabulary choices, and the book would have benefited greatly from the attentions of a good editor. This is usually the sort of thing that marks the first-time novelist (especially when they self-publish) -- but a look at the back of the book seems to show more than a dozen previous books by this author. Which means there’s no excuse for such sloppiness.

Review of eBook

Lieutenant Cassandra Morse, USN is a top combat pilot, a top-of-her-class Annapolis graduate who came from Navy royalty: her great-grandfather, grandfather, and father all wore admiral stars on their shoulders. Tonight, she’s testing a prototype, a million-dollar fighter jet that she’ll land on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan . . . in the “storm of the century” and on rough seas. And with her retired admiral grandfather along for the ride.

But while on target to intercept an unidentified object headed toward the aircraft carrier, the mysterious sphere explodes, engulfing the SV-1 and destroying it.

Plucked from the sea [thanks to a distress beacon] some three weeks later, Cassandra soon finds herself hospitalized; when she awakens from a coma, she doesn’t remember some things, but she sees her grandfather and talks to him. Only Admiral Morse died in the crash.

Forced to resign her commission, Cassandra begins having dreams of horrific events . . . dreams that come true. Arson. A double homicide. She tries to warn the police, but finds herself regarded as a crank . . . and a media darling.

But someone is watching Cassandra and it isn’t long before she gets some unexpected [but welcome] answers about the cause of her strangely prophetic dreams. Soon she finds herself working with the National Intelligence Agency in an effort to thwart the machinations of some smarmy businessmen and political demagogues. But when eco-terrorists set out to create a nuclear disaster, will Cassandra be able to convince anyone to help her stop them in time?

Strong, well-drawn characters populate this inventive narrative filled with tension and non-stop action. Several unexpected twists keep things a bit off-balance, delivering surprises and continually ratcheting up the suspense.

A well-defined sense of place adds to the ever-building suspense in this propulsive read filled with foreboding and mystery. Apprehension and distrust combine with mystery and some cloak-and-dagger doings to create a disquieting narrative. Readers will find it difficult to set this one aside before turning the final page.

I received a free copy of this eBook from Integration Press LLC/Author Buzz and NetGalley
#CassandraFilesGenesis #NetGalley

I don't usually read male authors - I don't like the way many write their female characters. THIS AUTHOR IS DIFFERENT.

Rod Pennington writes strong, intelligent and interesting female characters. His plots are full of intrigue, mystery and suspense.

This book should be a television series ala Alias or Blacklist.

Cassandra Morse is a disgraced fighter pilot from a long line of proud service veterans. She has horrible dreams that come true - arson and death. No one believes her until it's too late.

Notice of her dreams is taken by covert government agencies - how to explain the information she has, the hallucination of her dead grandfather and stop the next dream from coming true.

I highly recommend this book - I cannot wait for the next book in the series!

I have never read anything by this author before; I look forward to his next one. I believe that this is the first in a new series and I really like the characters. The author brings them to life in a way that makes you feel for them. He tells a very interesting story about the power of prophecy and how the characters react to it. Cassandra is an intriguing person who inadvertently stumbles into a mystery that she and her associates must solve. The author does a fabulous job of bringing all the suspenseful elements together to make for a great time. This is a pleasure to read:fast-paced,well-written,and surprising. I highly recommend this book and this author. Thanks!

Terrific premise! Believable motivation. Protagonist unfortunately does not feel gender authentic. An ok book. Would consider looking at future stories from this author.

I really enjoyed this book and would like to see more of Cassandra! It was a quick read with well drawn characters

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
This story start off with mystery-something has happened to our female heroine- formally bad ass fighter pilot Cassandra. She has been discharged, drinks herself to black out every night, is living alone, and hooking up with randos she meets at the bar. We learn that everything went sideways for her seven months ago when after a spectacular accident, she developed the ability to predict future crimes- the police and newspapers think she has lost her mind.
The story quickly jumps to her back story- how she was testing a new fighter jet, and everything was going wonderfully when suddenly an object comes hurdling out of the sky- heading straight for her carrier - the USS Ronald Regan. Cassandras plane is hit, and goes down in the pacific and when she is found 20 days later- she has this uncanny ability.
The mystery of who was the attacker, and how she got her psychic ability was revealed pretty early on, and most of the book focuses on preventing her latest dream- that a train load of nukes will destroy LA from happening.

Fortunately her accurate prediction of the a fire was published in the newspaper and finally she has people believing her.

Heres where things get complicated- the book trots out so many characters; doctors, cops, reporters, defense contractors, and the entire alphabet of Gov agencies and their analysts, and agents-I honestly had a hard time keeping track of them, and trying to remember/ figure out who was good and who was bad. I stuck with it, and didnt get too hung up on the details ( there are actually only a handful of characters who matter) and really wanted to find out what happened.

Kudos to the author for populating the book with so many bright capable female characters! Often thrillers such as this have the women playing sidekicks, but this one has them as leaders or masterminds. I also appreciate the bits of humor tossed in to the story.

The story has a satisfying ending, and I will probably read other books in the series -Though will make myself a cheat sheet with the cast of characters😉 Overall, I found the book an enjoyable read.

I received this book as an ARC with the promise of a review. This book is dynamite - literally! Rod Pennington has created vivid, creative characters who perform tasks for good and evil - with diabolical plots tossed in for good measure. The twists and turns in this dark psychological thriller keep you guessing to the end. I loved it and totally recommend this quirky book if you want to read something a bit different. I hope to see more of Cassandra Morse in the future!