Book review: Under Fire (book3 Elite Force series) By Catherine Mann

UNDER FIRE


“Elite Force”

May 2012

A decorated hero, pararescueman Liam McCabe lives to serve. Six months ago, he and Rachel Flores met in the horrific aftermath of an earthquake in the Bahamas. They were tempted by an explosive attraction, yet parted ways. Still, Liam has thought about Rachel every day—and night—since.

Now, after ignoring all his phone calls for six months, Rachel has turned up on base with a wild story about a high-ranking military traitor. She claims no one but Liam can help her—and she won’t trust anyone else.

With nothing but her word and the testimony of a discharged military cop to go on, Liam would be insane to risk his career—even his life—to help this woman who left him in the dust.

Wow i think this is my first full fledge Catherine Mann book. Talk about exciting. This book takes off with the action right from the beginning. A Pack of hot and sexy in shape pararescue guys swimming  miles and miles and all the while playing a somewhat dirty word game. What a way to open a book. Liam or Major McCabe is thinking about retiring. He's not that old at 38 but for what he does he's getting to be ancient. Rachel Flores met Liam 6 months ago in Bahamas rescuing people after a earthquake. She and her dog were part of team sent there to work with Liam and his team of pararescue men. They had a big attraction for each other but Rachel was afraid of getting hurt so she held off. Back stateside she ignored his calls and him for 6 months until something happened and she needed his help.  Rachel is training therapy dogs because she is burned out on the rescue jobs right now and that's how she meets Lieutenant Brandon Harris a wounded vet with PTSD who has a secret that could get them all killed. He shares part of that secret with Rachel and when she tries to help she finds out that people don't believe them and someone is out to silence them. That's where Liam comes in. She goes to him for help and that quickly launches them in a race to survive and find out who is after them. In the middle of that they try to figure out what's between then which leads to some funny and some really hot sexy moments. I loved Liam and his team and Rachel is pretty kick ass tough. Both Liam and Rachel have to work through some pretty intense issues in the story as where they are with each other and with the threat against them. One thing i didn't care for was how many times it was brought up that he'd been married 3 times. At one point he tells Rachel about each one and why he married etc. It seems to stick out like a sore thumb. Rachel finally gets past that and has some big realizations of her own. This book was intense with some humor and romance thrown in to balance the whole thing out nicely. 4 out of 5 Modokker Book Pick Stars for Under Fire by Catherine Mann. This book is part of a series but can stand on it's own if you have not read the first two. For myself though I am getting and reading book 1 and 2 soon.


Find out more about Catherine Mann this book and her other work here on her website. There's even a excerpt there for this book. www.catherinemann.com

Book review: Barefoot Season (Blackberry Island series book 1) by Susan Mallery

Michelle Sanderson may appear to be a strong, independent woman, but on the inside, she’s still the wounded girl who fled home years ago. A young army vet, Michelle returns to the quaint Blackberry Island Inn to claim her inheritance and recover from the perils of war. Instead, she finds the owner’s suite occupied by the last person she wants to see.

Carly Williams and Michelle were once inseparable, until a shocking betrayal destroyed their friendship. And now Carly is implicated in the financial disaster lurking behind the inn’s cheerful veneer.

Single mother Carly has weathered rumors, lies and secrets for a lifetime, and is finally starting to move forward with love and life. But if the Blackberry Island Inn goes under, Carly and her daughter will go with it.
To save their livelihoods, Carly and Michelle will undertake a turbulent truce. It’ll take more than a successful season to move beyond their devastating past, but with a little luck and a beautiful summer, they may just rediscover the friendship of a lifetime.

This is book 1 in a brand spanking new series for Susan Mallery. She's made a new website for it as well as she did when she started the Fools Gold series which has several book going for it now and a great interactive website. Barefoot Season was really hard for me to stick with at first. It's not because the writing wasn't good. It was the negativity of the characters. You don't start out with a sunny outlook. It starts out with Michelle going home after being wounded Afghanistan. She's seen some horrific things and had to make some painful decisions and now she's going home. Home was another painful place for her. She left 10 years ago after a series of incidents that involved her best friend and both their sets of parents. She essentially ran away from home at 18 and joined the Army. Now she comes home and has to deal with betrayal and try to deal herself. It's almost more than she can handle and you wonder if she's going to make it or not. Luckily she's got a old Army friend, Sam who shows up and her old best friend Carly which she has a difficult relationship with at first and then there is Jared. Jared is a vet himself although Michelle doesn't know it at first. She rents a room in his house because she can't bear to stay at the Inn. He doles out words of advice but doesn't hover over her. He shows up to rescue for herself now and then but again doesn't push. The characters are so real and genuine, You feel their pain. That was one of the problems when i first started reading. The negative painful feeling of Michelle got to me. I'm a Army Veteran myself so it bothered me to read about how hurt she was on in the inside and out. I know Susan Mallery's writing though so i stuck with it. About 1/4 of the way through you meet Jared and from there it was easier to read. I thought maybe this guy is going to be the one to help get her on the right path.  I was totally on board with this book by the end and loving it. I think this is one of the best books I've read so far this year. It's about two friends finding their way back to each other. It's a love story too. It's about finding your way back from the brink of losing yourself and finding you're OK. It's a must read. 5 out of 5 Modokker Book Pick stars for Barefoot Season by Susan Mallery. Find out more about this book and the whole Blackberry Island series by checking out Susan Mallery's new website for this series. www.blackberryisland.susanmallery.com Read a excerpt while you're there.

Book review and interview: Because of you by author Jessica Scott

Available now at:
B & N

Amazon
Powell’s
iBookstore


“Keeping his men alive is all that matters to Sergeant First Class Shane Garrison. But meeting Jen St. James the night before his latest deployment makes Shane wonder if there’s more to life than war. He leaves for Iraq remembering a single kiss with a woman he’ll never see again- until a near fatal attack lands him back at home and in her care. Jen has survived her own brush with death and endured its scars. And yet there’s a fire in Shane that makes Jen forget all about her past. He may be her patient, but when this warrior looks her in the eyes, she feels – for the first time in a long time – like a woman. Shane is too proud to ask for help, but for Jen, caring for him is more than a duty -it’s a need. And as Jen guides Shane through the fires of healing, she finds something she never expected – her deepest desire.”

Review:
I was a bit nervous and excited to read this book. Wait and waited patiently for it to come out and went right to Amazon and downloaded it when it did. I read the Prologue and then i let it sit It sat some more til the weekend and ok wait it sat some more until i got over myself and picked up and started reading. I was afraid after hearing everyone say they cried it would be to emotional for me. I wasn't in the mood for that so in my head i debated for almost a week. I never heard anything bad about it so that wasn't a problem. Through the whole book i kept waiting to get hit with some big emotional thing that would overwhelm me. Thing is i read the whole thing and didn't cry even once.  It's definitely not that nothing big happened in the story because the whole thing was big for me. It was a journey for more than one person. You have Shane who is the alpha GI Joe man all the way. He feels responsible for every man under his command and well just about everyone he knows too. Sounds like a pretty good guy huh? Problem is he can't control everything so when something bad happens he blames himself. Then you have Jen the nurse who is there for everyone but still has issues with her bout from breast cancer a few years before. Shane meets Jen the night before he and his unit are to deploy to Iraq again. Sparks fly but what can you do when one of the two is leaving for months and months? A few months go by and things are intense in Iraq worse than Shane thought it would be. Suddenly he and two of his fellow soldiers under his command are seriously injured and sent back stateside where wouldn't you know it Jen is working at the military hospital as a nurse.  From there the two start a journey to finding themselves and each other and why sometimes you have to trust someone else and believe in yourself. Shane and Jen are the main characters in this book but you get introduced to several other characters who have a impact on the story and i suspect the main characters in future books.  The characters are so read you feel you know them by the end of the book.  The story is so well written i didn't feel at anytime the need to roll my eyes at something that doesn't sound right. Jessica leads you right to the end of the story and then snags you with a ending that makes you excited for the next one. You want to know what happens to all the characters. I know i do. 5 out of 5 Modokker Book Pick stars for Because of You by debut author Jessica Scott. Read more about Jessica and this book and her future projects here. www.jessicascott.net
Find Jessica on Twitter JessicaScott Facebook JessicaScottAuthor Goodreads JessicaScott/goodreads

Below is a short interview with the wonderful Jessica Scott. enjoy!


1 What made you decide to write a military romance? Was it hard to get into considering what your day job is?


It wasn't hard for me to get into, honestly. The hard part was pulling from daily life and keeping things separate, you know? I can't seem to *not* write about soldiers. I've tried and written exactly one book that doesn't have military characters in it (and it will never see the light of day:). Apparently, my line into the collective unconscious is through writing about soldiers and I wouldn't have it any other way. I love what I do on both counts. Being a soldier is an honor and a privilege it's something I take incredibly seriously.

2 What's it like for you to have your spouse in the military also. Have you ever deployed at the same time? Did you meet your husband because of the military? PS That's where i met mine.

My husband and I deployed during OIF 09-11 in Mosul as part of 1st Cavalry Division. It was interesting to be in the same unit, that's for sure. I think we made it work and the really cool part about being deployed at the same time was that we kind of got to be a couple again. No kids. No housework. Just, you know, a war going on around us. But we made it work. It's always tough, though, being the spouse at home, worrying about your loved one forward. I can see both sides of it, you know? Being deployed is simpler, but not easier by any stretch. And being at home, while maybe not as dangerous, is arguably more stressful because you're mom, dad, everything falls on you to get done. It's a lot.

3 How did you research for this book? I imagine you have some of your own experience to draw on but did you have to look for more info is so where?

The military stuff wasn't all that tough for me to find out. I definitely got some funny looks from my brigade surgeon when I asked him about the best way to kill yourself with a weapon and about drug interactions while we were deployed. I promised him that I was writing a book and he was game, but still, I think he wondered. The medical stuff was a lot tougher to dig into. I had to pull from medical journals some of the medical stuff about Shane's leg injuries and I did a lot of research into people who thrived with amputations. A huge book for anyone wanting to see one man's perspective about life after amputation is Bryan Anderson's No Turning Back. Talk about inspiring.

4 If there is one thing that people misunderstand about the military or military life what is it?

Wow, there's so much we misunderstand about each other. There was an article written by a senior spouse military wife who was basically telling all the wives of today's war generation to suck it up, life isn't that bad. Well, she was a military spouse in the 80s and 90s when the worst thing she had to live through was a year of her spouse moving to Korea, not back to back rotations year after year. So it's hard to say where people misunderstand the most. I don't think the media portrays situations accurately when they say "the Army" did this or that. Ultimately, it's not "the Army" that did something. It's a specific chain of command. It's people. Does that make sense?

5 tell us 3 random things about yourself. Then tell us little about the next book in this series if that's possible.

Ack, three completely random things? Um, I have big feet. I'm kind of a cosmetics whore. And I love a good post apocalyptic anything (book, movie).

The next book in the series is a MUCH easier question to answer seeing how I just turned it in this week (whoot!). BACK TO YOU picks up where BECAUSE OF YOU leaves off. Laura Davila has been waiting for her husband to come home from war for years and finally, she's had enough. She sends her husband Trent divorce papers (a major taboo for military wives and sadly, an all too common occurrence) while he's deployed and he comes home to try and salvage their marriage. She has to learn to trust not only that he loves her but that he's capable of staying home long enough to learn to adjust to life outside of combat. It's a reunion story that really asks the question what is worth fighting for?