Five Minutes Longer

By: Victoria Sue

Narrated by: Nick J. Russo

Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

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 14 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 - four weeks for them to survive.

©2016 Victoria Sue (P)2017 Dreamspinner Press

Nick J Russo brings this story to life.

Any additional comments?

Intriguing start to a new series and definitely left me wanting more. In the world that Ms. Sue has created there is a new species of humans....enhanced with abilities that normal humans don't have, and not trusted by even their own families.

Finn Mayer just wants out of his small hometown and away from his mother and brother. He has been working at chance with the FBI but knows it's a long shot. When he gets a call for an opportunity with a new team filled with enhanced humans he knows this may be his only way in. He has four weeks and everything working against him.

Talon is an enhanced human with the ability to slow or stop human organs. And even coming from a prominent family he knows he will never have a normal life. Until the FBI decides to create a team of enhanced and Talon is tapped as the team leader. The only draw back is they have to work with non-enhanced humans as well.

This story line is fast paced with so much happening on both sides. It's politically morally charged. Then you throw the romance in there and that just pushes it over the edge to non stop action.

Nick J. Russo's narration does a great job at bringing these men to life and pacing the story to heighten the drama to it's maximum level. They story is strong on its own but Russo adds life to it.

I am excited to see how this world develops and want to know more about how the enhanced came to be.

Amazing

Loved this story . The author is imaginative and create d a believable world and such engaging characters. This is a must read.
Story= 5 stars
Narration =5 stars . Nick J. Russo brings the story to life perfectly
Overall= 5 stars
Charo

Unbelievable

This book was a complete surprise. I thoroughly enjoyed this audio book. The narration was wonderful the story line was Wonderful .Finn and Talon Were awesome together. The secondary characters made the book it was just unbelievable. I can't wait to read the rest in the series.

Love is the most special ability

Why did I wait so long to listen this delightful book? 🤦‍♀️ Guys, the hype is legit! 😱 I love this new series of Victoria Sue. 💙 How come she rocks in every sub genre when it comes to MM romance? 🤔 I discovered her with her ABO books which I loved and gushed over several times, and I loved her contemporary “Rainbow Cove” series and damn, I loved this urban fantasy, sci-fi book! The world building is simply refreshing and fascinating. 👏


Talon is an enhanced, a human with special abilities most normal humans feared and ostracized. Needless to say, Talon is really mistrustful of normal humans so when his superior officer said he’s brining in a normal human to their special task force, he was all against it. Finn thought becoming an FBI Agent is a hopeless dream. After all, he has dyslexia that he kept secret so diligently and as a result his college scores were mediocre at best. That is until he got a call from FBI asking him to join them on a special task force, a task force that each enhanced human will pair with a normal human as a partner. Finn has no problems working with enhanced humans, in fact he’s all for enhanced human rights. But his teammates are aloof and distrustful and Talon who’s supposed to be his partner is the worst among them. 😁 But you can be attracted to someone even when you dislike them. Right? Right? 😉


There’s no way around it, Finn’s family is just shitty. I wanted to bash his mom and his older brother several times. 🤬 And I saw so many people having problems with Talon’s attitudes towards Finn but I get it. I mean enhanced humans are so feared and criticized, it’s difficult for them to accept that there are some normal people who don’t think they are monsters and will treat them different. The chemistry! 🔥 Oh the chemistry!!! 😍That I want you but I don’t like you but oh, I want you more!!! 🔥 I am ALL for it. 👍 I loved Finn, such a sweetheart with a heart of gold and I loved all the other secondary characters in this story. And I know Talon can be a bastard most of the times but he can be a boyfriend of the year when he wants to. 😁 I especially loved the UST and relationship development between these two. And of course, popping butt cherry is always a plus in my book! 😂 So hot! 🔥 And I loved all the thrilling and mystery aspect of the story. Didn’t see that one coming! The villain!!! *gasp* 😱 As always, Nick J. Russo did a damn fine job narrating this story. I loved his Talon voice, so gruff and sexy! 😏 I’m glad I have the book 2 ready in my hands because I can’t wait to start listening ASAP. 💜



4.75 love is the most special ability stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟







Audio rating


Story - 4.5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Narration - 5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Performance - 4.75 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟
Overall - 4.75 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟

Quite interesting for an Xmen lookalike premise

Overall an interesting read, not quite up to par to something like the Xmen, but you can call it a gay take on the Xmen formula😜🤓👌🏻

I enjoy it for what it is, a bit clunky in the middle part of the story, the ending a bit abrupt, and left me feeling very lukewarm towards Talon, and Fin seems to play damsel in distress in almost half of the story, but the story premise itself seems promising to evolve into better landscapes, so I’m giving it a chance to change my mind in the next instalment of the series which I plan to get soon🤓

- 3.5 stars round up to 4 stars -

This is my second time listening to the audiobook, but for some reason I reviewed the book but not the audiobook.

*Spoilers*

From my past review of book, I had orginally gave this book 3 stars but was undecided between 3, 3.5, or 4 stars. The issues I had was that I felt like the romance went by really quickly to the point it felt like insta-love and that I kept forgetting who the characters were. I'm not exactly a fan of insta-love romances and it is true that Talon and Finn had worked with each other not very long before they ended up sleeping with each other and liking each other. I also had written about the fact that I was concerened about how Finn felt too young and green to be in the FBI, that he wasn't ready for such a commitment. But that feeling was probably due to him being surrounded by people who all had way more experience than him.

Now for an updated review.
I was interested in the story in the very beginning as it felt like it was something I was wanting to read. I didn't have any strong emotions towards any specific events because I kind of already knew what was going to happen. I remember one of the reasons I had stopped listening to this book was due to how heavy of topics this story has, especially with Finn's father. I do feel like Finn was put in a situation he was not prepared for and everyone knew it and admitted to it. He didn't have any formal training desipite how knowlegable he was about many different things. I would say he probably is around 21-23 since I don't recall if his age was actually mentioned, but he is in a way a bit niave and inexperienced, which makes it stand out how young he is and is why people started calling him a kid. He possibly might be younger, but he was drinking alchol so I'm not exactly sure. He just has a young appearance as well, especially with some of his more casual clothes that he wears. For some reason, one thought that came to mind is that I kept thinking about the things he left back at his mother and brother's house, because he hadn't packed everything he had with him. So I kept thinking how he was going to get his stuff and if his stuff would still be there with how mad his mother and brother were about him suddenly being on the news. His mother had shown in the passed that she didn't care about throwing things that were special to people away, so I wouldn't be surprised if his stuff isn't there anymore. Especially since Finn didn't have any intention of going back.
Towards the end, I didn't have much attachment to any of the characters. It could be because I have a lot going on right now, but it also could be that the book felt kind of short. It wasn't long enough for development for Finn and Talon's relationship, which there didn't feel like much to go on between them. They are constantly being put through the ringer and no one being forth coming about talking about themselves - which honestly isn't a surprise when they've barely known each other and were put into a partnership that part of the group didn't want - and so they just haven't had the time to really slow down and get to know each other from each other without hearing information from someone else. They are definitely attracted to each other physically and gradually become fond of each other, but in a sense, they barely know one another. There hasn't been time for them to get to know each other with all that is going on. The lack of time was a big issue with their relationship. There wasn't time for Talon to show Finn around the area, make sure Finn had everything he needed - like food and money - and with getting to know each other. I feel like it was a little unfair of Gael to get so mad at Talon for not making sure Finn had all of those things because Talon had a lot going on with being in the new situation, with a team to lead, a lot going through his head mentally and emotionally. And there was just a feeling that there was a lack of time with Talon being extremely busy to not have realized how unprepared Finn was with the whole situation. I think it should have been the person - Gregory - who had hired him to make sure Finn knew everything, got a tour of the place, and to make sure Talon was aware of the things he was supposed to do to make sure Finn was situated. One thing I would have liked to have seen was partner excerises. Where they had to learn to trust each other and work together. Or moments where they were spending time together when one of them wasn't injured.
I also felt like there wasn't much drive with figuring out who was behind the mystery of what was going on. The villian who was behind it kind of just revealed themselves as admitted to doing a lot of things without there being much "Who did it?" like in other books. They didn't really do much searching either on screen because it was mainly the side characters doing the work due to Finn being injured and both Talon and Finn taking time off from work. This could be an issue with the world building, but I'm not sure. Maybe this book wasn't meant to be written as a mystery? I will continue on with the series as I am interested in seeing where things go and learning about some of the side characters.

*Narration*
I thought the narrator did a wonderful job with this book. He gave all the characters distinct voices that fit with their character.

Love this book

I read this book and loved it, so I immediately picked up the audible version.
I'm a huge Nick J. Russo fan, but not for this one.
Looking forward to the next in line still :)

Absolutely Awesome!!!!

When I started listening to it I thought this book was going to be corny but man was I wrong. this book has action and romance and a little suspense. Finn was a main character who I felt was the underdog and constantly had to prove himself to his team but in the end lovable fan couldn't help but be loved by his teammates. The book shows you Finn's up and down moments and I swear that boy could not stay out of trouble to save his life. Victoria had me so many emotional turns, but I still wish there was a part 2 to listen to. If you have read or listened to the Thirds series then you know how similar the stories are, however it still doesn't take away from this one. I will definitely be listening to more of her books and hopefully more books of hers become audiobooks due to my busy schedule.

A great suspense with enhanced powers

Finn has wanted in the FBI since he was a small child, but he has some reading disorders and is finding it hard. Then he gets a call but is disappointed to find he is wanted to be a human in an Elite group of Enhanced specialists. Even though they are sort of in the FBI they are still treated badly. Finn has no problem with them but the Enhanced man that he is supposed to partner with has all kinds of problems with him.
Talon wants his team of enhanced men to be recognized and able to save other enhance people and children from the torment he and his friends have endured and hope to show the world they are not all bad. He can’t have a human in his group because all of his men have hidden secrets and their abilities seem to grow as they age.
I absolutely loved this book and all of the characters. It pulled me in and I didn’t want to stop once I started (yes I listened in one afternoon)
Nick J Russo did a great job of narrating this book, bringing each ma to life and adding all the excitement. I highly recommend this if you like Special ops, secret powers, FBI agents, suspense and a sexy romance as well. (If you read Charlie Cochet’s Thirds and are looking for something similar and as good… Here ya go! More hot men with secret powers.)

Great start to what seems to be a promising series

I really liked the premise and characters. The narration was good too. I'm unsure if I would have liked this more if I read it.