Review: Loved the characters, liked the story, hated the editing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 08 4, 2012
Loved the characters, liked the story, hated the editing.Read this book for: M/M romance, strong, visual sex scenes, masochism, bondage, torture and lovely, loving characters and a big, smiley grin for the snowball fight."Maybe we own each other."THE CHARACTERSHooch aka Bozic, Hubert, Sergeant First Class, 546798362 is an emotionless bastard that somehow still grabs your heart and makes you love him. As a U.S. Army Delta he is as tough as they come. "Never give up", is the mantra they live by and Hooch is no exception to that rule. Beginning with his capture and torture you believe that nothing can break him, nothing can tame him. Yet, Hooch craves to be broken."You look like someone who eats nails on toast for breakfast and burps fire," she replied cheerfully, "but appearances are deceiving, I'm told."Matthew Donahue is "quite something." Confident and secure in who he is and what he wants, his life seems very controlled and uncomplicated. His role compared to Hooch's seems, on the surface, to be one of easy going lover but it's the strength of his character that is the biggest surprise in this book. I absolutely love Matt and he feels like the perfect match for Hooch but the question is, is that enough?They sat close together, almost touching but not quite, a synonym for their relationship.I was delighted to see Dan McFadyen, from Special Forces, show up in this book. While I found his advice to Matt and Hooch delightful, uplifting and encouraging, his voice just didn't sound right to me.THE STORYThe book begins with a lengthy prologue taken word for word from the epic series, Special Forces, Marquesate/Vashtan. The prologue is completely relevant to this story and I feel it should be read whether or not you just finished Special Forces. It puts the reader in the right mind set for what is to come. It is very powerful, and possibly the best writing in the book.While Matt lives his life out of the closet, Hooch must live within the protocol of DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell). It seems that this would be the biggest barrier to their successful relationship but, oh no, it's not. Hooch's masochistic needs are the challenge to be mastered. I really enjoyed seeing this aspect play out (literally) and was surprised by the intelligence and creativity that Matt showed in meeting and indeed, mastering this challenge."that was a remarkable exercise in discretion."Late in the book there is a hint of an 'incident' from Hooch's past that, while important, it just felt like it came out of nowhere. Almost like the authors decided late that they needed some solid explanation for Hooch's behavior. The problem with that is it just didn't have any roots. No earlier hints or suggestions, so it just felt disconnected. The funny thing is, for me, I didn't feel like I needed an explanation for his behavior. I had already accepted that Hooch was just the way he was. It wasn't exactly contrived, just rather unnecessary.THE WRITINGI hate to do this, but I don't think there is any way one could read Special Forces and not compare this book with it. That being said, Special Forces, for me, was all about the writing; the intensity and beauty, the highs and lows, the gut wrenching emotional journey. This book just didn't reach those levels of powerful writing, at all. The flow was fine, the story was good, the characters, excellent but for someone who just had higher expectations, this left me a little disappointed. I also have to note the absolutely atrocious editing. Not only were there extensive typo's, there were dropped words and what I felt were complete sentences out of order. It was very distracting and I find it quite a shame. This, ultimately, is why I can not give this book 4 stars.Hooch huffed softly. "I'm the little spoon now, huh?"Check out my M/M Romance Review Blog at: [...]Please visit me at Goodreads: [...]