Bea Reviews Some Kind of Hero by Suzanne Brockmann

Series: Troubleshooters #17
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Source: the publisher in exchange for an honest review
Release Date: July 11th, 2017
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Blurb from goodreads:

Navy men don’t come tougher than Lieutenant Peter Greene. Every day he whips hotshot SEAL wannabes into elite fighters. So why can’t he handle one fifteen-year-old girl? His ex’s death left him a single dad overnight, and very unprepared. Pete can’t relate to an angsty teen, but at least he can keep Maddie safe—until the day she disappears. Though he’s lacking in fatherly intuition, Pete’s instinct for detecting danger is razor sharp. Maddie’s in trouble. Now he needs the Troubleshooters team at his back, along with an unconventional ally.

Romance writer Shayla Whitman never expected to be drawn into a real-world thriller—or meet a hero who makes her pulse pound. Action on the page is one thing. Actually living it is another story. Shay’s not as bold as her heroines, but she’s a mother. She sees the panic in her new neighbor’s usually fearless blue eyes —and knows there’s no greater terror for a parent than a child at risk. It’s an ordeal Shay won’t let Pete face alone. She’s no highly trained operative, but she’s smart, resourceful, and knows what makes teenagers tick.

Still, working alongside Pete has its own perils—like the heat between them rising out of control. Intimate emotions could mean dangerous, even deadly, consequences for their mission. No matter what, they must be on top of their game, and playing for keeps . . . or else Pete’s daughter may be gone for good.

My Thoughts:

The Troubleshooters is a series that I have a tendency to lose track of. I read a few, it falls off my radar, I rediscover it and read a few then it drops off my radar again, and so on. I've read maybe half of the books and certainly not in order, which can make things confusing, lol. I was a few books behind, once again, when I picked this one up. happily, it worked wonderfully as a stand alone.

The book starts off with a bang when Navy SEAL Lieutenant Peter Greene flags down a car driven by his neighbor, romance author Shayla Whitman. They take off in pursuit of a car that he thinks he saw his missing daughter climb in.

Peter may be a badass SEAL but he's in over his head with his 15 year old daughter Maddie. Peter and Maddie's mom Lisa split when Maddie was a baby and he's had little contact since. Lisa died a few months ago and now his estranged, angry, grief-stricken teenage daughter lives with him. Yeah, that's working out about as well as you might imagine. Poor, clueless, man. He means well but he doesn't know what he's doing. Give him credit though, he's trying. He took a leave of absence to spend time with his daughter and tried to nourish a friendship between Maddie and Ben, the teenage brother-in-law of another SEAL. He even gave her the master bedroom in the house he rented. Maddie's having none of it. She's sullen, uncommunicative, and a determined loner. She does have one frenemy, Fiona, and it's that girl who sets off events. Fiona gets Maddie into major trouble and then takes off. Maddie doesn't feel able to go to her father so she turns to the older, stoner, boyfriend that she's kept a secret from daddy dearest. Soon she's on the run from someone who wants to kill her and meanwhile she's ignoring her father's calls and texts.

Shayla has two teen sons of her own and she's also a single parent. She immediately jumps in to help Peter find Maddie and she's all in. It doesn't hurt that he's drop-dead handsome and she's had a thing for him since he moved across the street. Shayla is a successful romance author but she's stuck on her current book. She gets to exercise her writing skills while helping Peter though with a neat little plot device wherein she and Peter write the story of Peter and Lisa so that Maddie can learn more about her parents and maybe bond with her dad. Their story definitely lures in Dingo, the stoner older boyfriend. I didn't expect much from him when we first met him; he seemed like a throwaway character. But Brockmann surprised me and made him so much more. I have hopes he'll appear in future books.

Brockmann doesn't forget about prior characters and brings in a gang of them -Izzy, still a riot; Eden; Adam: and others, including some future SEALs, Boat Squad John, so-named because each of them has the first name of John or a variation thereof. And Jules Cassidy kinda sorta makes an appearance. Shayla, much like her creator Brockmann, writes a romantic suspense series but hers is about the FBI and her lead character Harry is a doppelganger for Jules. He talks to Shayla in her head and sometimes she replies out loud. Ooops. :D Don't worry Shayla, lots of us talk to ourselves. As long as you remember he's fictional, you're okay. Their conversations did veer into cheesiness at times but they added humor and also functioned as a way for Shayla to think things through. 

Maddie, like some real world teens, could be annoying, frustrating, and stupid. I wanted to shake her so hard at times. But I would remember when my parents divorced, and when my mother died my senior year of high school, and I could empathize with her somewhat. I did find the premise of the trouble she was in to be somewhat over the top and unlikely, but I have, in some respects,a sheltered life so maybe it's just me. It has a been a while since I was a teenager. :P Brockmann made good use of today's technology - texting, Facebook, etc - and how teens use it, incorporating it smoothly into the story.

With the focus on finding Maddie, there's a lot of time spent on research and pounding the pavement. The result is that there's not as much action as many of the other Troubleshooter books and much of it is later in the book. Parts of the story are told through Maddie and Dingo's eyes and they get involved in some action so the book is not action-free but it's not action packed.

A few things that I LOVED about the book:

1) Shayla's ex is remarried and she's not the devil! They don't hate each other! It was so refreshing to see an honest, realistic portrayal of the relationship between an ex-wife and a current wife. It's not all rainbows and unicorns but it's respectful, cordial, and even friendly. When Tiffany, the current wife, gets caught in the crossfire of events with Maddie, Shayla doesn't hesitate or think twice about stepping up to offer her protection. She just does it.

2) The Japanese internment during World War II. I knew a little about the internment of Japanese American citizens but I learned more in this story. I love when a story also lets me learn things and Brockmann did a good job. She didn't get preachy and she didn't shove it down my throat but worked it into the story naturally. It's a horrific time in American history that most of us don't know enough about.

3) Respect. That was a part of 1 and 2 up top but really, Brockmann has it all throughout the story. For instance, Peter is careful not to put down Maddie's mother when taking about her. Another shining example of it is Shayla's writing. Peter doesn't denigrate it or put it down. He takes the time to research Shayla and her books, and even buys one to read. When the action starts up and he's worried about her, he frames it not as she can't take care of herself (which she can) but that they each have different skill sets and his include dealing with bad guys. He's respectful, not derogatory or condescending. And when she uses her skill set to aid in a rescue, it's utterly awesome.

"Some Kind of Hero" gives us a steamy romance, suspenseful action (GO SEALS!) (if not enough of it), snark, humor, history, some unexpected characters, some quirky characters, and a solid, if slightly unbelievable, story. If you're new to the Troubleshooters, it's a good starting place. If you're a regular, all the steamy romance, rich characters, and complicated story that you're used to are here. I wasn't a fan of the epilogue but then I rarely am. I do wish Brockmann hadn't set it a year in the future as now all subsequent stories will need to align with or lead up to the events of the epilogue. Still, a good story, worth your time.