Review: Enjoyable, but...SPOILERS AHEAD
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 18, 2014
This is a great idea for a love story, a wounded soldier and an emotionally wounded civilian woman.  Rafa has lost a hand and a lower leg, Emily has lost a boyfriend that she deeply loved.  Through friends, they meet and the attraction is instant.  Emily is uncomfortable with her body, she believes she is fat.  Rafa thinks she is utterly gorgeous.  But he feels unlovable in his mangled body.  Emily sees the a handsome, virile man that she does not feel worthy of.  And at the crux of this lies my own dilemma with this tale.All of the focus of this book is on Rafa's learning to accept himself, allowing Emily to help him see the choices he has in his life, the dreams he can still fulfill, the roads that unwind before him.  There is virtually none of that reciprocated for her.  They never even mention Emily's boyfriend's death, how Rafa's opportunity to work for the Army in Afghanistan makes her fear for his life.  She's lost one man...can she survive losing another?  I kept waiting for someone to bring it up, but no one did.  Ever.  I kept waiting for a resolution, or at least the beginnings of a resolution to her body image issues, but there never was one.  And I never understood all of the animosity Rafa's mother directed at Emily, and there was no resolution or even an explanation of that.  All of the story that took place in Madrid seemed pretty pointless in the end.  Yes, Rafa's ex is a Be-atch, and his boyhood pal is a slime bag, Grandmother is wonderful, future MIL is a Be-atch, too.  So?  None of those plot threads were tied up at the end, so why were they there in the first place?SPOILER OVERThe story seemed emotionally flat, and I felt the author was trying way too hard to build the world this couple lives in, and not nearly enough time to develop the couple themselves.  This book could have benefited hugely from an editor to help tighten the story, to heighten the drama and cut the deadwood.  A final copy edit is needed here as well...there are lots of typos, grammatical errors, and words that were just plain missing, often making sentence structure meaningless.  Still, I think this is a worthwhile read...we need to honor our heroes every chance we get.  And this book does do an outstanding job at that!  Ms Frost needs to go over it with a ruthless blue pencil and a note to self that the H cannot suddenly grow a hand, only to lose it again in the next sentence.One final note: a short glossary of Spanish would have been helpful, as would an explanation of military jargon and acronyms.  I still don't know what SOC stands for.  This book is a good beginning, but only half-formed, IMO.