I don’t think Eden Finley has ever confirmed it, but I like to think of her Mike Bravo Ops series as a spin-off of a spin-off.
It follows on from the Famous series, which itself spun out of the Fake Boyfriend series, the “Sadenverse” that got me into Finley’s books in the first place.
Iris is book one in Mike Bravo Ops, and it follows Isaac “Iris” Griffin and Brock “Saint” Harlow.
Who are Iris and Saint?
Iris works for Mike Bravo, a private black ops firm, and he lives for the adrenaline of a dangerous extraction.
He earned his nickname at Army basic training: “I Require Intense Supervision”, or IRIS, because, by his own admission, he is a bit of a hot mess.
Readers of the Famous series will already know him. Iris first turned up in Pop Star, the first Famous book, working as Harley Valentine’s bodyguard alongside Brix.
READ MORE: Harley will always love you: how Pop Star became my gateway into the Famous series
Saint is the opposite. Raised in a military family, he is suddenly discharged after a top secret mission fails, and Mike Bravo is the only place that will take him.
He is gay, newly out and no longer willing to hide that he has always wanted Iris, even though fraternising with a teammate breaks Mike Bravo’s rules.
As the book’s blurb puts it, “something tells me Iris might be worth the insubordination.”
Meet Mike Bravo Ops
Mike Bravo Ops is a private security and confidential operations firm founded by Travis West, a former US Army Ranger who ended his service as a Sergeant Major.
West set it up specifically to employ LGBTQ+ armed forces veterans, running the firm out of a San Gabriel Valley headquarters, with a ranch and shooting range in Palm Desert.
The name, one character jokes, officially stands for Motherfucking Bad Asses.
Travis, or Trav, first appeared as Brix’s boss in Pop Star. Here, he is joined by a crew that includes Atlas, Zeus, Ghost (real name Casper) and Angel, short for Angel of Death and the only woman on the team.
The best page in the book
After reading at least 20 Eden Finley books, page 122 of Iris finally gave me what I had been waiting for: a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference.
When Angel (of all names!) suggests Iris’s codename should be Buffy, Iris fires back: “Ohh, do I get to pretend to be a vampire slayer?”
It is a small moment, but as a lifelong Buffy fan, it made my day.
More action, more explosions, more of everything
Compared to the Fake Boyfriend and Famous books, Iris has noticeably more action and higher stakes, which tracks given the black ops setting.
It also, somehow, has more sex. Fights, danger and high stakes seem to bring out a different side of Finley’s writing, and this book proves it.
Iris’s cockiness plays brilliantly against Saint’s competitiveness, and their chemistry is easily the strongest thing about the book.
What’s next
Finley has kept building the series since Iris, with Rogue, book two, picking up Travis’s own story with Dylan Rodriguez.
Now that Iris has set the tone for Mike Bravo Ops, I am already wondering who gets the next book: Atlas, Zeus or Ghost.
Get your copy of Mike Bravo Ops: Iris at EdenFinley.com.
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