Review: Not an effortless read, but still intriguing.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 13, 2014
When I read the blurb, I was intrigued and excited to read a romantic suspense involving a female SEAL. The author stated quite clearly that she took creative license with that, therefore I was prepared to find some rules being bent to suit the plot.The story started off with a bang which marked the beginning of the end of the heroine's SEAL team career. She behaved just about the same way I would have expect a male SEAL to - sadness, shame, anger, guilt, depression. However, Chris fared a little better than that, and I attribute that to having her two best friends and team buddies by her side most of the time. I liked that Todd and Chris didn't beat around the bush about taking their friendship to the next level, especially after her drug-induced confessions. The story got going once they both acknowledged that they'd like to bring a third into their relationship. Specifically Jim, since Chris already confessed to wanting both of her best friends. The plot focused on the elation from Todd and the devastation from Jim because Todd got to Chris first. From that point on, I struggled with getting into the flow of the story.There were three things that dampened my enjoyment.The names. Sometimes in dialogue their given names were used while their handles were used in narration. Other times it wasn't unusual to find both used whether in dialogue or narration. I even thought to myself that it would be rather funny if they used their handles in intimate sex scenes. In the very beginning I had to remind myself which one was Magic and which one was Retro, so I was thrown for a while.The facts. Granted, someone who doesn't have that much Navy knowledge probably wouldn't care or notice, but the few that I found, one on top of the other, became bothersome to me. Chief Petty Officers might have gold chevrons, not gold bars. The one that stuck out the most was the heroine's promotion from Ensign to Lieutenant, which was wrong. It should have been Lieutenant Junior Grade. It stuck out because over the course of the story, Chris was often referred to as Lt and she called herself "an equal ranking officer". And all I could hear in my head was a buzzer.The repetition. "Man up", "pull your head out of your ass", "the blond SEAL" instead of saying Todd or Magic, "he's a better man anyway", etc. The amount of times their cocks swelled or hardened just from seeing her.The dream sequences and flashbacks weren't in italics, so the transition from the present time to either of those didn't feel smooth. I'd read and read only to stop and have to go back to see if I missed something. I would have liked a visual for my subconscious to point out the change without a jarring interruption in the flow.Out of the three protagonists, I felt that Todd (Magic) was the most pulled together. He was the glue holding them together. From the moment he got a positive sign from Chris that she wanted to be with him, he became a bit too lovey-dovey: always doting on her and haranguing Jim to "pull his head out of his ass". It took him a long while before he figured it might be better to ask Jim about his demons instead of trying to bully him into accepting a threesome relationship.Chris began on a strong note and slowly turned into a cliche as the story progressed. As soon as she opened herself up to Todd, gone was the toughness that kept her going as a SEAL, and so was her confidence. Aside from several repeated mentions of how impressed the guys were with her during BUD/S training, I couldn't tell you much more about her. She went from warrior to ordinary (at least until the last few chapters when the drama sets in). The climax portion was a brief breath of fresh air when we get to see Chris in her element again.Jim (Retro). I started out loving him. His demons, that centered around his interest in threesomes, went all the way back to his childhood and his verbally abusive father. Jim was made to feel like a pervert and a deviant for his kinky wants. Then he lost the woman he wanted to his best friend. Then they presented him with his forbidden fantasy. The drama of his life dragged on too long. His repeated mantras of how he wanted but couldn't, Todd was the better man, it was wrong to want to share his friend's wife, and so on. He didn't make any effort to sort himself out, his friends preferred to pressure him rather than help. By the half way point I didn't care anymore; about any of them. Two chapters before the end, Jim tells Chris that he has strange needs, that he "loves pleasuring a woman with help". Then he asks her: "That okay with you?" What kind of question is that when the whole story was about them inviting him into their marriage, and they'd already had a threesome that didn't happen in a dream?I really wanted to like it more than I did. I think the execution is what made this story fall a little flat in places. Even though it was just over 100k, I felt like I was reading forever. Several pages of dialogue could have been shortened or eliminated without losing the momentum. The overall pacing of the plot was good with advancements in this complicated relationship being moved along in spurts of few months at a time. I believed their feelings for one another, but more on a professional level as opposed to a romantic one. The sex scenes were scorching hot, but I did skim some parts of them when the nicknames came into play because it wasn't very sexy and made them sound detached from the romance.I do think the author has a great voice, and she can tell a story. I know my review sounds like I didn't like anything, but that's not the case. It's just hard to explain. All the elements were there, but some may have needed to be rearranged. Would I recommend this story? Yes. I think it could appeal to someone who likes angst, a tortured hero and a hot menage. This may not have been for me, but I would still love to read something else by this author.Disclaimer: I received a review copy from the author for the purpose of an honest review. The views and opinions expressed in this review are my own, and in no way represent the views or opinions of the publisher/distributor.