Who We Truly Are

Enhanced, Book 2

By: Victoria Sue

Narrated by: Nick J. Russo

Talon’s deadly abilities are spiraling out of control. Desperate to keep Finn safe, Talon struggles to protect the man he loves with all his heart and not become the greatest risk to Finn’s life.

Finn has no choice but to offer himself as bait for the evil forces kidnapping enhanced children, facing danger he is untrained and unprepared for, and he will have to do it alone.

Does Talon have one last fight in him? Will he slay everyone who wants to destroy Finn and the team, or will he finally discover that to defeat their enemy and the ultimate threat, the biggest battle he has to face is one with himself?

©2017 Victoria Sue (P)2018 Dreamspinner Press

AWESOME BOOK

THIS BOOK IS SO AWESOME, THE STORYLINE IS THRILLING AND THE NARRATION IS SIMPLY PERFECT.

NICK RUSSO BROUGHT THIS AMAZING BOOK TO LIFE - LOVED IT

Missed the mark Mutants and Men

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

If I had a Freind that liked MM romances as much as me absolutely! Mutants and Men what’s not to love. If they read the first in the series, this is a good bridge to learn more of the other characters and open up the world of the enhanced.

Which scene was your favorite?

Elijah carrying off Beau ( the imprisoned blind child) after talon and sawyer rescue the child from his father. This child is blind and has the ability to burn things with electric current. He can’t touch anything living with out burning it. His father locked him up in a closet, starved him and told him he was possessed. The only person who can touch him is Elijah who burns with fire. Elijah doubts the good of the HERO team, and yet you see him not hesitate to take the child.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

X rated x-Men.....

Any additional comments?

First is better plot wise. The character development is much better in this one. It still gives you all the feels.

A gripping story

Our actions will always define who we truly are...
The second book in the Enhanced series follows up where the first one finished. Talon and Finn are still trying to figure their relationship while working to make their team a success. When the turn of events makes it necessary for Finn to go undercover, it does not go well with Talon, who wants to keep Finn out of danger, which of course makes Finn angry because he feels demeaned. This summarizes Finn and Talon relationship. Talon needs to keep Finn safe, who in turn feels the need to prove himself. Likewise, Talon feels Finn would be safer without him, and that makes Finn question if Talon really cares about him. It seems so difficult to reach an agreement between these two stubborn characters!
As for the mystery, it is interesting and gripping, The pace is fast, and the intrigue gains momentum with every page. Nick J. Russo manages the narration perfectly, being able to masterfully balance feelings and actions. With a wide range of emotions on display, his voice becomes the ideal means to navigate a roller-coaster of events that move from grief-shaken teenagers to cold-blooded murderers with a surprising ease. It is an excellent performance, which makes this audio a fully enjoyable experience

Keeps getting better and Better

This is book 2 in the enhanced series and you do have to read in order. This one picks up after Talon and Finn have met, partnered and become lovers. This is being sent on their second mission where Finn will be going undercover in a foster home for enhanced kids to find out where the missing kids are going.
The story is intriguing, suspenseful and it also furthers the hotter than heck romance between Talon and Finn. we learn more about some of the characters, Talon himself included. We meet some cute adolescent boys with talents too. I already loved Finn but this story made me fall even more in love with him.
I listened to the audio and love the narration by Nick J Russo. He really kicks it up a notch giving as many different voices as he can. I did think a couple of the boy voices sounded more adult than a couple of the adult but it didn't hinder the performance. If you can get these in audio I highly recommend!

Awesome

Nick J Russo was great (as usual) S narrator. Love his work! Victoria Sue was on point, as usual, awesome story, now onto the next one. It's been so hard waiting on all these to be made audible!

Going Strong!

I enjoyed this book more that the first. We’re seeing the growing pains of Talon & Finn’s relationship. How one wants to protect the other, and the other wants to prove his own strength & his own worth. It’s a realistic struggle for a new relationship. And I love how their conflict got resolved.

I love the other characters in this series too & I’m looking forward to getting to know them, but at the same time, I wanna keep reading about Talon & Finn. ♥️

Nick J Russo did a fantastic job with his performance. He managed to give all different characters come life in various ways and accents. Amazing!

I love Finn and Talon.

I read this book when it first came out and loved listening to the audio of the story. Nick Russo does a nice job narrating Who We Truly Are. He does a good job voicing the different characters. Below is my original review from the when the book was first published.

Talon and Finn had a nice HFN (happy for now) at the end of book one, Five Minutes Longer. In book 2, Who We Truly Are, we learn more about their relationship. While I think you might be able to read book 2 without reading book 1 first, you would be missing a lot of background information about the entire Enhanced team/world that would definitely enhance your pleasure of book 2.

Finn is once again put through the wringer, going undercover to try and find out where missing Enhanced children are being taken. Talon has to deal with his wanting to protect Finn and still let him do his job. It's not an easy thing and continues to cause difficulty in their relationship.

In Who We Truly Are we also get more in-depth knowledge of the Human Enhanced Rescue Organization and the other members of the team. While the pace is a bit more sedate than book 1, I think it was just right for this story and there are still plenty of heart pounding things going on.

I love epilogues and the one for this book is perfect. We get a nice ending to a great story and it also sets things up for book 3. I wouldn't say there is any kind of a cliffhanger – Talon and Finn's relationship is resolved – but I was definitely left wanting to read book 3 as soon as possible.

I think the Enhanced series proves Victoria Sue's ability to write wonderful stories in a wide variety of romance genres. I've loved her historical series - Innocent, her shifter series - Sirius Wolves and now Enhanced - which has more of a sci-fi feel to me. She remains firmly on my list of favorite authors and I don't plan on missing any of her books from here on out.

Great second book!

This was the perfect way to wrap up Talon and Finn’s storyline. I’m looking forward to book 3.

talon needs therapy. that’s my review haha

I left a pretty lengthy review already of the first book and most of my comments there apply here.

I was glad to see talon actually finally mature a bit toward the end of the book after the finale events. it was refreshing to see after his - to put it mildly - absolute beyond childish tantrums and hissy fits. I get he has metric fuck tons of trauma but come on, he’s still an adult and people who have gone through worse still can act at least moderately mature, despite emotional stunting.

anyways the end made it all better and if it wasn’t already clear i’ve been enjoying the story and characters overall. and I like that the science of the mutations are starting to veer toward slight realism, particularly with the mention of epigenetics. the good part about that is it allows for environmental factors to actively play a role. AND it can come from prior generations environmental exposure.

i’d bet money this is being positioned as epigenetic fallout from agent orange in vietnam. the war has been mentioned several times and it’s the parents’ generation of the people with the mutation, and as that generation gets too old to have kids, there are a lot fewer kids that are still transforming. and to be clear, the vietnam agent orange hypothesis isn’t necessarily exposure to the end product, but maybe one of the ingredients was leaching into the ground water of people living in the us. or something

if it isn’t agent orange exposure, it’s something along those lines that was just in the us, and I am confident it’s exposure to the parents, not the kids themselves

to nerd out for a minute - the mention of the identical twins was a good inclusion as that is the basis for the epigenetics argument being a more underlying factor for the transformation. and talons ability if I had to guess isn’t so much that he learns others’ abilities through lengthened exposure over time. it might make more sense that he is:
a) mapping a person’s body almost instantaneously down to the molecular level
b) imagining with his mind (consciously or emotionally reactionary) what he wants to have happen

my point about b) is from the following observations:
1) when he manipulates others’ physiology, it’s obvious he isn’t doing just one thing to them.
2) with his dads death, he wanted to stop his panic. but just stopped too much and he died.
3) with Finn getting shot, it was emotionally traumatic enough that he would do anything in his control to save him, including subconsciously using his mental map of sawyer’s body to change his own down to the molecular level and be able to deconstruct metal. same with the invisibility and phasing ability

it’s helpful he doesn’t have to be aware of his mental map of the others body, that seems to be observed and remembered automatically with no conscious effort

so my underlying point is his ability underlyingly is to map physiology and change physiology, with permanent effect. it’s important to note I think this is distinct from a mimic ability (like rogue from xmen)

so yeah the science is getting pretty cool. I wasn’t expecting to see that and it’s adding another layer to it that I like

ok that was a lot longer than I planned to write 😅

I don't want this to end

Great follow up to the first book. I love Nick J Russo, his distinction of characters makes anything he reads come alive. He not only creates unique voices but uses the emotions to show the depth of feelings. He doesn't read the book but acts the characters. Its like a one man Broadway show.
I wasn't so sure I would like this genre when I read/listen to the first book but I'm glad I did. I fell in love with the characters and was sad when it end. I bought this book last night and listened in one sitting. I'm about to start it again cause I kept dozing off. I highly recommend this book because it's so GOOD. Please let there be more. There are so many secondary characters that deserve their own follow up stories.

Victoria Sue is a great story teller and she is one of the authors I check at the least weekly to see if her other books have come out on audible. So buy the first one if you havent and immediately move on to this one. You should not read this one without reading the first one. You would lose the understanding of the depth of love, loyalty and plot line.