The book begins with a recap of Angela's first true display of power in front of the other Eagles as she has the team take a dangerous detour to save a group of survivors, one of them a young pregnant girl. Brady thwarts an attempt on her life by one of the twins, and almost gets himself killed in the process and Angela is forced to display her powers to save his life. Fortunately, one of the twins dies in the process and this only makes the other more determined to see Angela die at his hands. After seeing what she can do, most of the Eagles are on board with her and work to help her achieve her goals of being an Eagle.
As she continues to grow in her skill and strength, Kenn grows angrier at the fact that he is being edged out of his second in command seat, and by his weak wife, no less. At one point, it seems Kenn is destined to be removed from Safe Haven for his actions and feelings, but fate plays her hand and things turn out differently.
As Angela trains to be an Eagle, she seems to raise the interest of some of the other camp women, specifically Samantha, and it looks like Adrian's dream of a team of female Eagles just might happen after all.
Meanwhile, Angela struggles with her feelings for Brady, and Adrian, and a lot of other guys too. Here's where it gets to be a drag. Every man in camp seems inexplicably drawn to Angela's beauty and power and her vanilla-scented body. Ok, I get it - she's pretty and strong and has overcome a lot, but hearing about it gets a bit old and tiresome. Also, everyone in the book seems overly possessive. There's lots of talk of who needs to be whose legal mate, and this one belonging to the other one. Also, I got the creeps hearing about Neil's relationship with 15-year-old Becky. And what's worse, towards the end of the book, another Eagle named Kyle has his interest sparked by a pregnant 14-year-old. Gross. I know it's supposed to be a brave new world after the War of 2012, but it's still a little skeevy.
This book also spends more time on Pitcairn Island with Luke and Kendle's relationship finally cementing and the pair declaring their love for one another, but not before the local creepy rich boy, Ethan, tries to muck things up. It seems many of the locals, including Ethan, have eerie green eyes and appear to suffer from some sort of poisoning. They have been running a white slavery ring complete with a murder here and there and they intend to frame Luke for it. When Luke and Kendle fight back, Kendle barely makes it out of the situation with her life.
The book picks up into high gear at the end, when Adrian's Eagles finally have their massive confrontation with Cesar and his band of slavers. While it's a thrilling scene, it seemed to be over too fast, after 4 books' worth of buildup. The book ends with Safe Haven rolling into another town to rescue a group of children, one of whom was long thought dead by his father, an Eagle. Because of Adrian's Eagles ending on such an exciting note, I'm interested to see where the series goes.
Angela White's strength in her writing lies in the hard-hitting action sequences and not so much in the interpersonal relationships and romance department. I understand that a new America has to be crafted out of the remaining people, but I guess I just didn't find their relationships very interesting. This book is also different in that in offers some pictures along the way and a handful of character bios with pictures at the end of the book that fall somewhere between Abercrombie & Fitch and soft-core modeling. Here's to hoping the Unnamed Book 5 focuses more on the action side and less on the personalities that make up Safe Haven.
