- Series: Fierce Girls at War (Book 1)
- Author Mike Adams
- Paperback: 252 pages
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 1 edition (February 8, 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1981930299
- ISBN-13: 978-1981930296
- Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
Fierce Girls
“I love being a Marine but there are days…We may have a lot of the same problems in 2122 we did a hundred years ago but back then the Gul brothers weren’t paying lots to see my head on a spike! Not that I was born yet but that’s not the point! So I’m a pretty good shot and Rick is even better. Did I ask daddy Gul and his boys to go on a rampage? No, I didn’t! But now we have to leave the planet and go to the New Hope colony where the locals like to eat people!”
- Staff Sergeant Susan ‘Molly’ Bennett, USMC
‘FIERCE GIRLS’, Book 1 of the ‘The Fierce Girls At War’ series, introduces the lead characters and covers the events that force Lieutenant Paul ‘Rick’ O’Brien and Staff Sergeant Susan ‘Molly’ Bennett to leave Earth. Then as Lieutenant Commander Rick ‘Cassidy’ and Gunnery Sergeant Molly ‘Pickford’ the story will deal with their first months at the New Hope Colony.
More than anything else the books are about women who are smart, brave, quick thinking, resilient and steady under fire. They must find it in themselves to fight battles against other humans before the coming desperate struggle against an alien invasion of Earth’s first colony in space that will arise in the following books of the series. Those books will show these women and others take the lead in fighting for the life of the colony.
‘Fierce Girls’ begins on Earth in the year 2122 and then about halfway through moves to Earth’s first colony in space, New Hope, on Tau Ceti 4. Book 2 ‘Threat on the Horizon’ picks up the story in the year 2126 when the colony is about to be invaded by aliens who consider the planet theirs and intend to eradicate the human invaders from it. This provides a unique environment to put a group of characters, predominately female, from many different countries together in a situation where they must work together and fight for each other in order to survive.
My Review
Over the years, I have written many reviews on books that have to deal with women serving in the military and most of them are non-fiction and talking about past true experiences.
Well, here's a book that presents a futuristic look at women in the military. The backdrop is humanity is colonizing a planet orbiting another star and terrorists are hell-bent on stopping the colonization.
Molly Bennet and Paul (Rick- short for ricochet) O'Brien are forced to deal with the effects of killing a terrorist Hassan Gul and his sons. As one might expect, there is a bounty placed on their heads which could be fatal for them and the people around them.
The setting for the story begins in Yonkers New York.
Ricks's dad, Jimmy, was a detective that was killed working an anti-terrorist attack. Jimmy is known as a hero. Kelly Cassidy ( Rick's mom), is a Weapons Training Coordinator and the glue that holds the family together. Kelly looks about twenty years younger than she is. She has four children, three daughters, and one son. The oldest child is Rick. Rick's daughter is Ciara. Rick never married Ciara's mother, Melanie McCord, as Rick was only 16 when Ciara was conceived.
The family unit is made up of Cassidy's and O'Briens. It's not been an easy time for any of them as there was a pandemic years earlier and many family members were lost. On top of that, they had to deal with Jimmy's murder.
Kelly keeps a close eye on family and you can see they are tight knit even though they are spread out. We see family from New York, Massachusetts and Maine appear for Ciara's 10th birthday party. They get along well and there is a little bit of sarcasm and jarring that goes around. Especially, when Kelly's girls get together and discuss Kelly's dating history. It seems her interest in Marine officer Robert Black has the whole family talking.
This book reads much like a futuristic military family drama. The family spends time gathering behind the firing line at pistol competitions, emptying their clips at targets and all have to deal with the raising bounty which puts them in grave danger.
Readers witness that these military heroes are strongly supported. Their houses are run by artificial intelligence which keeps them abreast of the latest news. There is also anti-gravity and ftl in this story which shows us how important the function of redeploying or reallocating materiel and personnel truly is.
Resorts serve as hideaways and there are helmet cams, live broadcasts, assaults, presumptions of death, new identities, and mandatory deployments for these Fierce Girls.
I received a copy of this fascinating military drama from the author. The book is now available on audiobook, ebook, and paperback.
About the Author
Mike Adams (b. 1956) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up across the Verrazzano Bridge in Staten Island. While in college he studied business and Spanish and spent a college semester in Austria studying German and traveling all around Western Europe. The following summer he went back on his own for two months of backpacking around the Mediterranean countries and meeting people of diverse nationalities and attitudes.
After graduating from Wagner College in 1979 with a degree in Business Administration he joined the Navy as a Navy Supply (Logistics) officer. In the Navy, he traveled to six continents and some thirty countries and came to clearly understand Napoleon Bonaparte's maxim that "an army marches on its stomach" as well as the importance of nations to work together to achieve common goals in peace and in war.
He also very much likes and respects smart, competent women who are also brave and good leaders. During his years assigned to naval ships, he witnessed first hand the integration of women into ships' crews and the problems they had to deal with, some of which continue to this day. The Fierce Girls At War series is dedicated to women with those qualities who still have to deal with double standards, resistance due to their gender and sexual harassment.