Review: Five Minutes Longer by Victoria Sue

Talon Valdez knew when he transformed into an enhanced human, his life and his dreams were finished. Reviled, mistrusted, and often locked away, the enhanced were viewed as monsters, despised by the public, and never trusted to serve in the military or any law enforcement agency.

Years later he gets a chance to set up a task force of enhanced to serve in the FBI, but with one proviso: each enhanced must partner with a regular human.

Finn Mayer dreamed of joining the FBI from the time he was fourteen and made every possible sacrifice to make it happen, including living with his selfish mother and bullying, homophobic brother and never having a boyfriend. But his undiagnosed dyslexia stopped his aspirations dead in their tracks. His last chance is to partner with Talon, an enhanced with deadly abilities who doesn’t trust regular humans with their secrets and wants Finn to fail.

Four weeks to prove himself to the team. Four weeks for the team to prove itself to the public. And when another group threatens their success—and their lives are at stake—four weeks for them to survive.





Great start to a series? 


I'm not sure if this is going to be one or not but the foundation has certainly been laid with Five Minutes Longer. We're introduced to an AU which contains enhanced humans confined to the US. Why only the US? No one knows. Also intriguing is why certain people become enhanced to begin with; it's something that crops up in childhood, usually prior to puberty. I'm not sure if it's solely a male phenomenon or not but there is never any mention of a girl waking enhanced. At any rate, a mark shows up on their faces and typically all hell breaks loose.


Many parents disown their kids leaving them in the care of the state in usually subpar accommodations that are more like prisons to protect the public ostensibly because their powers aren't well controlled. As you can imagine many of them do not stay in these homes and some wend up in the care of malcontents.

Finn's dream is to be an FBI agent. His brother is a bully and his mother doesn't deserve the moniker and one day when he receives a letter to arrive in Tampa to start work on a new project within the FBI. Needless to say, he leaves a vapor trail.



Finn is introduced to his new team which consists of enhanced only excepting him. The plan is to pilot he and Talon Valdez as partners to build trust with the general population and if that goes well then the rest of the team will be paired with humans as well.




Gael, Vance, Sawyer, Eli. These guys are like superheroes! With an edge. The things that they can do are pretty boss and what makes it even cooler is their powers are still evolving! There seems to be an even split among them regarding just how welcome Finn is, but as the action unfolds they warm to him and become stronger as a unit.

If you're averse to communication issues between the protags you'll probably want to steer clear of this one. Talon and Finn couldn't find an adult conversation with a compass AND a map. I'm not averse to communication problems but what did become old was the martyring. It made both of them look like wishy washy amateurs which, I guess, they actually are, but wouldn't one try to avoid looking like a wishy washy amateur if one were one to begin with? It made me seriously question Talon's fitness to lead the team. He's very rash whereas Gael is possesses a sangfroid or even Vance whose gregariousness is infectious, so why not make one of them team leader? The other thing that nagged was Finn's thin skin. I would think someone raised in the environment in which he was raised would have a well fortified defense system. Evidently not.

The thriller aspects may have slightly outweighed the romantic ones and I do wish there had been more showing Talon and Finn's connection rather than telling, but their chemistry is clear. The sex is in the medium range and Finn is a virgin, if that's your jam.

I liked Talon and Finn but I think I'm more smitten with the team which is why I'm hoping this will turn into a series. I'd also like to know what happens to some of these kids.

Recommend to thriller and AU fans.




A copy was provided by the publisher.

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