"Flawed but interesting."

This book could be good, but it has some points that make it dificult for me to recommend it wholeheartedly. The descriptions of Beirut were beautiful and made me long to visit the country. Mark is a sweet tender husband, caring and patient with his wife on their wedding night, respecting her feelings because he knows she has been raped. And the letters he writes her when he is away in Beirut made me wish for someone like him in my life.

There is a feeling of family in the book, especially in the diner where Rose works. Gunny, a gruff but tender ex- marine, is almost like a mother to Rose. Even the customers become part of the family feeling, each caring about Rose and trying to help her when she becomes pregnant with Mark's child.

Denis Grady is a complex hero, at once able to hold Rose in his arms while she reads Mark's last letter to her and able to be the tough head of his own security business. In this, he is much like the familiar hero of romance novels. I felt the love between him and Rose happened too fast to make it believable. She is pregnant with the child of a man who has just died in a horrible way and while I can believe she might seek comfort from his brother, I can't accept that they love each other after so little time.

Which brings me to my main complaint about the book. There is just too much happening at once to make it all believable and some of the action feels contrived. The spy angle doesn't belong here, and what about Richard who turns out to be Rose's father? If it had been presented differently, it could have added to the story instead of detracting from it.

In closing, I have to say that the eulogies given the fallen marine were almost poetic and made me feel the grief of the families as if it were my own. The book has some flaws but makes for interesting reading.

Reviewed by Linda Rimmer for Sensual Romance.

Reviewed by Sensual Romance
Posted June 1, 2002