Exploited (Zero Day, #1) by A. Meredith Walters

Exploited by A. Meredith Walters
My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars

Haunted by events from her past Hannah Whalen has become freed0mov3rdr1v3 or “Freedom Overdrive” a cyber hacker wanted by the FBI that’s main mission has been to shed light on the corporate and government lies. Hannah has managed to keep her online identity a secret as she has gone about her mission so far but now an FBI agent named Mason has walked into her life.

Mason has made it his mission to track down Freedom Overdrive and he feels he’s been getting closer. That is when he meets Hannah and there is something about her that draws Mason in. Hannah sees getting close to Mason as an opportunity to find out how close he’s getting to her secret identity but what she didn’t count on was him getting into her heart.

Exploited is the first book of a new series, Zero Day, by A. Meredith Walters. I really wanted to love this story when I picked it up and began reading but in the end I’m giving this one 2.5 stars. The biggest problem is probably something I should have expected but Mason just came across as completely clueless instead of a hot shot FBI agent. I couldn’t see a real agent not being suspicious and careful so the whole story seemed a bit off.

Hannah is a pretty good character on the other side of things. She’s been through a lot in her life and has come out of it stronger and out to right what she feels are the wrongs in the world. To be honest the hacking/cyber side goes over my head since I’m the type to be lucky to log in to things on the internet so I can’t tell if that is realistic or not but her hacker side seemed a lot better than Mason as an FBI agent. Couldn’t help but think he was thinking with the wrong “head” too much of the story.

Overall, I may have liked this more if Mason had been more realistic but that threw me off for the read. It was a decent suspenseful plot to follow along with that readers may enjoy but I wouldn’t warn that the book just leaves the reader hanging with a cliffhanger to lead into the next book.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.