Undercover by Lauren Dane
Review by Cynthia F. (frazerc)
Futuristic/SFR with a relationship driven plot. I’m not saying there isn’t action but much of it is sexual. Since this is a ménage book, a great deal of time is spent on scenes exploring combinations of one, two and three partners. [Despite the heroine assuring them she is okay with ‘boy touching’ – her words, not mine – the two guys are into her and not each other. They are emotionally intimate, and there is an occasional kiss or caress – but it’s on the way to what they really want, her.] Light BDSM elements – bedroom submission, a few toys, spanking…
The book opens with the heroine, Sera, storming into her superior’s office demanding to be sent back to her unit. He refuses and introduces her to her new unit, Brandt Pela and Ash Walker. She decks Ash, puts Brandt on the ground when he tries to block the door, and storms back out. Eventually she is forced to listen – she has been assigned to work with these two in a covert intelligence unit – for reasons having to do with her skills, not her past with Ash.
Both Brandt and Ash are Ranked [think English aristocracy, especially before the introduction of the House of Commons.] Ranked men are not supposed to do more than play around with unranked women. Sera is unranked. Ten years ago Sera and Ash were together and, she thought, deeply in love. The shock when she found out he was engaged to be married and he asked her to be his official Mistress was devastating. She left him, and any thought of love, behind.
The mission necessitates her being a ‘mistress’ to one of the men since the society they will be entering requires it and they need someone to spy at that level. She refuses to have anything to do with Ash but agrees to do it with Brandt. Circumstances [of the extremely obvious plot device variety] occur that require her to be the mistress of both of them…
The threesome work well together in the bedroom and on the mission. They succeed in tracking down the traitors and bringing the proof back to their superiors, proof that rocks the comfortable world of the Ranked…
Ash wants her back – desperately. The wife he was forced to marry divorced him seven years ago so he is now free, but as a second son he still cannot marry without his father’s permission – permission that he could not get ten years ago and cannot get now.
Brandt had heard a great deal about Sera from his best friend and he falls deeply in love with her. And his father is much more liberal than Ash’s..
Sera learns about the realities of being Ranked and finally understands why Ash did what he did ten years ago. She slowly begins to trust again, both Ash AND Brandt…
Federation Chronicles
1. Undercover
2. Relentless
Phantom Corps
3. Insatiable
4. Mesmerized
5. Captivated
