The Sword of Islam

By: J.D. Sinclair

Narrated by: Jamie Dione

Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

If you are a Tom Clancy fan, you will truly enjoy this story based on recent history and today's headlines. The story starts when Israel launches a pre-emptive war to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. Simultaneously, Israel's Mossad sleeper agents succeed in igniting an Iranian internal revolt that is on the verge of succeeding in overthrowing the entire radical Iranian Jihadist regime. In an effort to avert defeat, with their backs to the wall, Iran's supreme leader decides to launch a last ditch "Hail Mary" attack directed at Israel's key supporter, the US.

This is the story of that attack and those fighting against it.

Against this all out Hail Mary Iranian attack, Israel puts its best soldiers and secret agents into the fight: unflinchingly brave women and men who willingly give their lives in a determined, heroic, and desperate effort to stop the attack, with the lives of millions of Americans and Israelis hanging in the balance.

©2015 David Michael Ramirez (P)2018 David Michael Ramirez

Sexy. Steamy. Saucy. Exciting.

Not just another war story.

Crafted with just enough history and recent headlines to make you think, this story is compelling, action-packed, and thrilling. The characters are realistic, complex, entertaining, and definitely held my interest.

Sexy, steamy, saucy and descriptive. I blushed, I gushed, and I admit I replayed a couple exciting excerpts for my husband.

Finished the entire book in one sweep because I didn't want to pause the audio! Highly recommend!

A hard listen

I want to start off this review like I do with my other review copy reviews by giving full disclosure that I got the material for free with the intent of getting my opinion on it.

Sometimes you get a good one and, unfortunately, sometimes you get a bad one. The part about this book that immediately stands out is the narration, which is just bad. I've heard that the better narrators will read through a book several times to get a feel for the characters before recording. I don't think that Jamie Dione made that effort. His narration starts off very detached and rather clinical - very similar to what it's like to listen to a documentary (something he might excel at.) The narration does get a bit better after the first hour as the narrator seems to get a better feel for the characters, but it never really feels engaging. Some of the more risque scenes are even almost funny to listen to with the somewhat detached tone the novel has.

These risque scenes are something else to point to as a whole. I feel it's important to say that the story is more about the military aspect than it is about the sex, which is something at least a few people I've talked to were confused about. The cover makes this rather ambiguous since it clashes so much with the description of the novel. Those scenes are there, and there are quite a few of them, but I would definitely not put this novel in the 'romance' category.

As a whole, I think the story is decent. It's not groundbreaking and the plot is rather straight forward, but it's an interesting idea that is kind of fun. The writing gets clunky at times, especially during the sex scenes which all feels very similar to each other. I never really felt like I cared what the characters did and their actions all kind of started to blend together a bit. I found myself having to rewind a few times to catch the factions at play in the current chapters. Admittedly, this has a lot to do with the narration as well, but even taking that into account, the writing still feels flat throughout. Most of the characters feel the same to me. I think that perhaps the idea was to get the reader attached to both sides of the conflict, ultimately making the climax more fulfilling since you can't decide who you want to win. As an idea, I like that a lot, but in practice it didn't pan out. With a little work, I think the story could be something, but it's not there yet for me.