Mercury Striking

The Scorpius Syndrome

By: Rebecca Zanetti

Narrated by: Michael Pauley

Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

Named as one of the best romances of 2016 by Amazon.

With nothing but rumors to lead her, Lynne Harmony has trekked across a nightmare landscape to find one man; a mysterious, damaged legend who protects the weak and leads the strong. He's more than muscle and firepower - and in post-plague LA, he's her only hope.

As the one woman who could cure the disease, Lynne is the single most volatile - and vulnerable - creature in this new and ruthless world. But face to face with Jax Mercury...danger has never looked quite so delicious.

©2016 Rebecca Zanetti (P)2017 Rebecca Zanetti

Love this series!<br />

I've read a few other apocalypse books by other authors, but this one actually has a plausible storyline that kept me interested from start to finish. Love that some plot elements continue from one book to the next but no cliff-hanger endings. So glad this series is available on audiobook, so I can reread-listen while doing mundane tasks. Makes my day so much better. Hope she writes the rest of the series quickly and makes all the books available in audio format.

What is this?

I thought I was buying post-apocalyptic romantic suspense, but it's surely not that. I'll call it clumsily written bdsm erotica sans consent because I can. I almost quit when Jax humiliates heroine (forgotten her name already) in front of his manly tribe in a chest-beating, who's-your-daddy way while poking at her bare breasts. But I hung in there. Then he gets her alone, whips off his leather belt and beats her with it until he raises welts on her skin. Just to, you know, make sure she knows who's the boss. Then they have excruciating badly written sex. Still, I didn't quit.

I did not quit until I heard something that went like this: She wriggled her bottom across the mattress cascading his balls with her wetness. As an aside, no one I shared that with understood what it meant either. The cascading wetness defeated me. I quit.

It's not sexy or romantic or even erotic. I don't know what it is. But it's not for me. I'll be asking for a refund.

A good start to a new series

What a suspenseful start to a new series. This series is set in LA after a devestating infection killed over 90% of the population. One group of survivors and doing all they can to defend the compound they have claimed in downtown LA. There are great .characters. There are many heros. This group dimistrates the best of humanity and the strength of humans determined to survive. There is a lot of gory violence, so if that bothers you, choose something else. There is a romance that develops between two survivors but, I would say that this is secondary to the struggle for survival by this group of people. I'm downloading book 2 right now.
-V from Kansas

Great start to new series.

Mercury Striking was a terrific end of days type book and romance book that is the first in what I hope will be a long series. I immediately read the 2nd book and wait with baited breath for the 3rd book. This series would be enjoyed, I think, by people who normally like science fiction, war and fighting type books or books with strategy that would be used during war or war like situations. In these books 90% of the population has been wiped out due to a bacterial infection which is absolutely something that is possible in this day and age. A group of survivors and their leader in LA makes up one of the factions and their are 2 other factions. One of those is led by a man who says he's the acting president of the United States. The different scenarios that happen really made me think about how I would react in those situations. Many of the survivors in the different groups have lost everything and everyone. Some are stronger and more determined to survive but still maintain their humanity. Others would walk over their own child to survive. The author is good about fleshing out the main characters deeper personalities and some of the background characters as well. She does a great job describing the environment. I could visualize it so clearly in my mind. These books were so different from all the other Rebecca Zanetti books I had read.

This was so much better than I expected!!

I'm a fan of romance but I HATE a story with no STORY. This book has it all!! In fact the romance part of the book is very secondary to the plot and I really really enjoyed that. I had flashbacks to King's 'The Stand' and I enjoyed this book almost as much. That's really really hard to say and expect ppl to believe. But wow!! Read this book. Even if ur not a huge fan of romance. This isn't a love story. And it makes you think.... what if the world ended.... tomorrow.

Pleasant Surprise

Most times I tend to judge a book by the cover which is what I did with this book. Even though I overlooked it several times something kept bringing me back. So I bought it and boy am I glad I did. I absolutely LOVED this story. The main characters, Jax & Lynn were HOT together. The story was also amazing and I wanted to just listen in one sitting but I had to sleep😴 sometime. I can't wait to get the second book to see what happens. I will not tell anything about the story ; you will just have to get it. You will not be disappointed😁🙌🙌

Great concept, but just missed the mark.....

I really liked the premise of this book and even liked the characters to some degree. The way the author rolled out the scenes was interesting and kept me listening. However, like other reviewers i had a huge problem with the way the author ignored consent and pretended that if a woman capitulates then it isn’t really necessary. Why do we have to have an alpha hero that hits women? It just doesn’t make sense - violence doesn’t equal power or strength - ever. This type of hitting to punish (without any consent), is not sexy or sexual, it’s violence. I get that this is a new, harder world order, but if you want to make out the hero doesn’t demean or force women, then make sure they don’t use male power to humiliate, violate and physically hurt women. I think the author wanted us to celebrate the fact that the men don’t rape women - that’s not impressive, that’s just a baseline for being a human being, impressive is when strong leaders wield power without taking away other peoples power. These gaps meant the book went from potentially great to just okay.

VT. FAN

What did you love best about Mercury Striking?

I have all of Ms.Zanettis' books and audiobooks..I love the world's that she builds, the action and the romance. The H is always ALPHA and the h always sarcastic and feisty. Just the way I like them..Every one of her audio books have great narrators. I usually don't go for the male narrators because they don't do female characters as well as female narrators do male characters. This is a great book with a very good narrators and I hope the do the whole series.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Mercury Striking?

The first chapter..It had you hooked right off the bat.

Which character – as performed by Michael Pauley – was your favorite?

He did great job with male, female and child voices. Each character was distinctive.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

YUP!!

Any additional comments?

Rebecca Zanetti is an auto buy for both kindle and audio books. Can't say that to often and I have 5,500 audio books and 10,000 kindle books.

Great story!

I loved this book from the 1st page. It has everything I love about reading. I couldn't put it down until done. It's definitely a page turner.

Pretty imaginative bio disaster story with a gritty romance

This story is almost the beginning of the series- there is the very beginning of the story in a novella which is promised as a bonus audio in book 2. Still most is explained or hinted at by the end Ottis audiobook. The lines are drawn and the stage set. While the main evil is the virus, there is a nasty gang leader and a psycho former Secretary of State who is serving as President. The heroine is a scientist who unfortunately helped start the process that got out of control and an Army Ranger with PSD who leads a stronghold of survivors in LA. The story I’d interesting and the action scenes are fast paced. There is plenty of introspection, some character development, some slow boring parts, and mediocre love scenes (unlike some of the author’s other series). The storyline is solid though and with dual narration (which looking head has yet to happen) and tighter editing this would be an excellent series. Since the narration is something to put up with and gets by, we can only hope for the editing to be better in the next few books.

Post apocalyptic - realistic story

Ms Zanetti has created a realistic post apocalyptic world. The romance between Lyn and Jacks follows an interesting route through truth and omissions. A great start to this series and I will be listening to more ASAP! I found the narration to be disappointing. Mr Pauley’s intonation sounded odd most of the time, making it difficult to follow the actual story. However, the story was great and I will put my irritation aside just to hear more of the characters in this new world order.