Breaking Point (Hqn)
Bay Thorn is attached as a medic to a SEALs unit in Afghanistan as part of a top-secret Pentagon effort to place women in combat situations. Gabe Griffin is ordered to be her mentor and trainer and to run interference with any SEALs resenting her presence. Bay, a natural healer and crack sniper from her hunting days in West Virginia, handles herself well but fights her attraction to Gabe, having lost her fiancé to military action. Gabe, for his part, is getting over a bitter divorce and wants no new involvement, but he can’t help falling for her. They are inordinately professional about it, until she is rotated out. They can only reunite, admit to, and act on their love when she has leave from her new posting and visits him at home in Coronado. In the sixth book in the Shadow Warriors series, McKenna (Degree of Risk, 2014) skews the balance between action and romance to the point that Bay and Gabe’s ongoing protestations of love actually get tedious to read. One senses the setup for a sequel. --Mary K. Chelton