This book goes to the top of my list for favorite books in 2026! It’s just that good. The only downside is that I’ll have to probably wait awhile for the next book. I really, really like the way these books are written. I’m no tactical genius, but I do have an Army background and these stories bring back a lot of memories, some good and some bad. I think the character build in these books is excellent. You just want every one of these guys and gals to survive the battle and get to the next one. That doesn’t happen in all cases as you’ll read.
Captain Mike Sandhurst leads the 157th Calvary Scout squadron and they are going into battle once again on Paradise, continent sized piece of land on the planet Honalee. They had been fighting the Buzzers for some time now and were going to continue fighting them until they left the planet. Humanity needed this Honalee as a staging site when they fought to take back Haven. But for now, all his attention is focused on the current mission.
As you read in the last book, humanity now has a new “ally”. What once was an enemy, has now offered their assistance in fighting the Buzzers if humanity would take it. They know that both had made a mistake when they had faced each other during their previous fight against the Buzzers. Now they both know that they should not be enemies, but allies against this very powerful enemy. The Rhino’s have revealed their presence by raising out of the sea long the coastline of Paradise. They have armor and infantry consisting of Rhinos and crab-like creatures called the Varkaloth. These aliens have been fighting the Buzzers for many, many years and they are very happy to now have the humans fighting with them if they can agree to work together.
Of course there is some resentment with this arrangement since the Rhino’s were responsible for killing some very important people during that unfortunate encounter. But, they are now allies and General Justice has agreed to use them and they will support one of his flanks. That happens to be the flank that Captain Sandhurst is responsible for so his units will need to integrate with the Rhino infantry and Varkaloth. Lieutenant Colonel Kathy March now has all the intelligence responsibility for Task Force Victory. She will actually take up station inside the command vehicle of the Rhinos along side their General Narrag. This Rhino commanded all his Rhino forces near Paradise and respected Kathy as the mind behind the sword. They were going to learn a lot from each other.
So, you really need to have a map to draw out all the lines of responsibilities for this Task Force Victory. There are at least six maneuver elements/regiments across Paradise. Not only regimental sections but air corridors have to be established because they have two Air Wings providing close air support to the maneuver elements. One of these is the Bolts which have a special relationship with Captain Sandhurst. Vivian Llewelyn flew in Bolt 503 and she was very interested in making sure Captain Sandhurst was protected as much as possible. He was her fiancé after all and they were going to be married someday. And there’s more than this one romantic story-line in the book. Paige Dixon had gotten herself romantically involved with Colonel Cliff Snodgrass. The Colonel was convalescing back at Capulin but also heavily involved in development and deployment of future weapons systems for the force. He and Paige had decided to keep their relationship cool and not public, but that didn’t workout too well. It’s still good for them.
While all this is going on, the enemy is still planning some deadly tricks. This, unfortunately, will surprise everyone and result in the death of a very prominent warfighter and shake up the entire Task Force Victory structure. As always, the next guy or gal has to stand up when one of their leaders goes down. This is going to a happen a lot in this book. We’re also going to find out from the Rhinos that the Buzzers are being controlled by something called the “Dominae”. The Rhinos say that once the Dominae step into the fight, it’s usually over for whoever they are against!
This battle might be over but the war has just begun. I can’t wait to see more books in this series. The bad side is that I’ll have to wait until the author produces his next book which isn’t mentioned on Amazon. No telling when it might come out, but I can guarantee, it will go on my reading list as soon as it’s available.
[Note 1 (12/23/2025): I’m no longer associated with Amazon and will no longer provide any links to books from that website. You can usually find books that you like at your usual source.]
[Note 2: As of 12/03/2023, this will not be posted on Amazon since I have been banned from posting reviews for some unknown reason. ]