5 Star Book Review | Claiming Charity by Ann Gimpel

CLAIMING CHARITY (GenTech Rebellion #3)
by Ann Gimpel
Published: June 9th, 2015

What does it take to move past a lifetime of hating?

Charity’s luck never ran strong because her original configuration was unstable. Her handlers designed experiments to fix the problem, but only made it worse. Sick to death of living under their thumb, she jumps at a chance to escape her compound. She’s no sooner settled in as a CIA special operative—a role where she can put her augmented mind and body to use—when her wobbly genetics escalate.

Tony’s a freak—a genetically altered human waging war against the government. He snaps up an offer of amnesty, walking away from his role as a genetic researcher to work for the CIA. When Charity collapses in a severe seizure, he labors to save her life, but nothing’s working. In a last ditch effort, he joins his mind to hers and discovers he wants her more than he’s ever wanted anything. Only problem is she hates every single male freak for how they treated women in the compounds.

Charity recovers from her medical crisis, but all she can think about is Tony. Furious, determined to never let anyone like him near her, she blocks him from her mind, but he seeps back in anyway. Loving someone like Tony is a huge risk, a gamble that could throw her already precarious genes into a tailspin.

Knowing all that, why the hell is she considering it?

Cover Review:

The covers for all the books in the GenTech Rebellion series are really great, including Claiming Charity. I like the yellow and green coloring. The woman really makes me think of Charity. Charity is the more stoic of the women, and the model portraying her on the cover really brings that out.

The model portraying Tony doesn't really bring the character to mind when I look at the cover. The expression on the man's face looks kind of smug, and Tony never seemed that way to me in the book. One final things that looks kind of awkward is their positions to each other.

Okay, it would seem that my problem with this cover is the male portraying Tony. It's just not working for me.

Book Review:

Of the three books currently available in the GenTech Rebellion series, Claiming Charity is my second favorite book, Winning Glory being the first. In this book, the Nameless Ones have stolen the Cortexiphan that the government had shelved to stabilize the V4's genetic code. The team heads to the swamps of Louisiana to try to recover the stolen drug and stop the V4's from becoming virtually invincible.

While fighting snakes, alligators, and their own kin to recover the Cortexiphan, Charity and Tony struggle with their feelings for each other. Charity has trouble reconciling her feelings for Tony, while she still hates the Nameless Ones. Tony tries to prove that he's not like the other Nameless Ones who hurt her, but he has trouble accepting her apparent joy in getting her revenge by killing Nameless Ones. So Tony and Charity have this tug-of-war going on with each other and themselves.

I really loved reading about Tony and Charity as a couple. They have many challenges they need to overcome, but what I loved the most was their innocence when it came to relationships and intimacy. They're both adults, so of course they know about sex and how it works, but the fact that neither of them had ever had sex and were experiencing it for the first time together was really appealing. Even though they are new to relationships with the opposite sex, I really liked how they explored everything together. I just really enjoyed the newness and innocence that these two had together. I really feel like they are going to have no problem making it. They may hit a bump or two, but I think they'll be very happy together.

Beside the fight against the Nameless Ones and the developing relationship between Charity and Tony, there was a moment concerning Milton that was kind of scary. My heart was pounding and I was hoping that everything would work out. I really believe that Milton is the one that keeps this group together. He's the glue, and if anything were to happen to him, the group would fall apart.

After reading the preview for Loving Hope, I desperately want the next book. I can't wait to continue this series and read about Hope and Charlie.

Rating:

I gave Claiming Charity a 5 STAR rating. I loved reading this new adventure and fight against the Nameless Ones. Each new mission is getting more dangerous. I absolutely loved Charity and Tony. I really think that they are perfect for each other. And just to spice it up, one of the team ends up in grave danger. This series just gets better and better.


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Ann Gimpel is a mountaineer at heart. Recently retired from a long career as a psychologist, she remembers many hours at her desk where her body may have been stuck inside four walls, but her soul was planning yet one more trip to the backcountry. Around the turn of the last century (that would be 2000, not 1900!), she managed to finagle moving to the Eastern Sierra, a mecca for those in love with the mountains. It was during long backcountry treks that Ann’s writing evolved. Unlike some who see the backcountry as an excuse to drag friends and relatives along, Ann prefers solitude. Stories always ran around in her head on those journeys, sometimes as a hedge against abject terror when challenging conditions made her fear for her life, sometimes for company. Eventually, she returned from a trip and sat down at the computer. Three months later, a five hundred page novel emerged. Oh, it wasn’t very good, but it was a beginning. And, she learned a lot between writing that novel and its sequel.

Around that time, a friend of hers suggested she try her hand at short stories. It didn’t take long before that first story found its way into print and they’ve been accepted pretty regularly since then. One of Ann’s passions has always been ecology, so her tales often have a green twist.

In addition to writing, Ann enjoys wilderness photography. She lugs pounds of camera equipment in her backpack to distant locales every year. A standing joke is that over ten percent of her pack weight is camera gear which means someone else has to carry the food! That someone is her husband. They’ve shared a life together for a very long time. Children, grandchildren and three wolf hybrids round out their family.