Enemies of the State

I enjoyed this!

It's longer than I expected (my fault for not checking how long the audio was) but still a nice listen.

John Solo was good as usual. Not the greatest at accents, but I didn't really care. Jack and Ethan's relationship was sweet, as per all Tal Bauer's couplings so far. I did figure out the mystery, but that's fine too. It wasn't the kind of thing where you're like hello stop this person right here.

So why -0.25?

I didn't like some of the exposition vomits. The news clippings between chapters weren't great at first, because it just seemed like an easy info dump. Oh by the way this has just happened, we move now to our characters' reactions. I would have much preferred for the info to be shared in some other way.

The only time I liked the news clipping was
the press's reaction to Jack after the funeral. I would have liked to see Ethan's real time reaction too. As well as Ethan after being kidnapped. Like I wanted to follow Ethan after they took him. It seems like not much happened so we didn't miss much anyway.

Some of the other random conversations were interesting but a bit confusing at first. Was wondering who was who. Luckily it was all revealed at the end.

After the action winds down we have some sweet time with Ethan and Jack. Quite a bit of time too. Again, Tal does this a lot. Didn't super mind.

It's a really nice read.

I didn't expect this book to be so good. It was extremely fast paced with some thrilling political intrigue and a beautiful love story. Now I can't even remember why I was skeptical about reading this 😂😂😂 Such a fun read. Can't wait to read the next one.

This is a great book. It isn't flawless, but I enjoyed it way too much to give it anything less than 5 stars.

The romance is friends-to-lovers and it's very slow-paced, with a lot of introspection. As a Secret Service agent, Ethan is not even allowed to befriend a protectee, and he definitely shouldn't develop romantic feelings for the president. I thought the romance would be solely in Ethan's PoV, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Jack's PoV also. The romance plot is central to the whole story, but at times the action is in the forefront. There are also forces moving against the president from the beginning, and that plot unfurls as slowly as the romance, culminating in some incredibly exciting and cinematic action scenes. If you love a badass hero, Ethan is your kind of character!

While this is a GFY plot (in a way), Jack does not have much difficulty altering his perspective of himself, compared to Ethan's stress about their jobs. I don't like GFY partly because it almost always erases bisexuality, and this book does suffer from that problem. The word is not mentioned in relation to Jack at all, which is strange. However, I know that the author has defined Jack's orientation as demisexual, and although this book doesn't use that word either, I can see that was the author's aim.

I was also pleasantly surprised that Jack turned out to be very toppy, after the beginning, when Ethan was so firmly established as dominant in his casual encounters. I think it's very romantic that Ethan notices for himself that Jack likes to be in control, but I also like the fact that the MCs openly discussed sex. Ethan believes he will have to tread lightly with Jack, who has never been with a man before; I have read sex scenes of that kind in GFY books before and was expecting something like that here. Instead, the author does something original with the concept, showing Jack moving at his own pace in their relationship. There are only a few sex scenes and they're very emotional and loving, with no particular kinks, which seems appropriate for the characters and the story. Ethan and Jack are already deeply in love by the time they ever have sex.

The flaws I noticed could've been remedied easily, such as typos and a few unfortunate phrases that made me cringe - example: “Though she was gorgeous and moved like a princess, she had a sharp mind[...]” It would be very easy to rephrase that so it isn't sexist. But nothing like that really detracted from my enjoyment of the story. I had a little bit of trouble warming up to Ethan at first, but I don't think that is a flaw, just the way the story is structured.

I really liked all the side characters, especially Faisal, and I hope they'll play important roles in the rest of the series. Overall this novel feels self-published, and I mean that as a compliment. To me, the author indulged themselves by delving deep into everything and thoroughly exploring the characters and the plot. I enjoyed every moment of reading this book, and I will be reading the rest of this author's work very soon!