GRR Reviews Saved (The Saved Series Book 1) by Lorhainne Eckhart

Saved can be told basically as a fairy tale, set in the Persian Gulf of not too long ago, between the captain of a US navy destroyer, and the girl they fished out of the Persian Gulf in a dinghy. The story is emotional, but the captain is often difficult to like, having that chauvinist attitude. Yet his protective instincts are right on. The girl is both strong and horribly brittle and weak at the same time, which is the way a victim often is. The book is about how circumstances threaten to keep them apart, but didn't feel very tense.

Eric is the captain of a US Navy destroyer in the Persian Gulf. They came upon a dinghy in the middle of the ocean. The dinghy was brought onboard... revealing a very pregnant white girl, wearing a Middle Eastern full-body chador. She said she was Abby, an American visiting Paris months ago, snatched by human traffickers who sold her to a sheik, who raped her until she got pregnant, then beat her. She was 8 months pregnant and may have been adrift for days. As Abby recovered onboard, Eric found himself drawn to the vulnerable girl, but soon Eric has to fight a sexual harassment charge. A female corpsman, who got a chewing out for failure to respect the captain, decided that the captain's chauvinistic attitude (that females should be left protected at home to be wives) makes him the perfect target for her bogus sexual harassment charges. Then CIA wanted to 'borrow' Abby as bait for the Sheik. Eric had to deal with threats from without (CIA and his superiors) as well as within (from his own crew, and the JAG investigating officer) as well as trying to keep Abby safe and deal with his feelings toward her...

Frankly, I have a little problem with Eric the captain. I don't see a guy with that sort of attitude and lack of tact rise to the level of captain. And besides, the XO is generally the person who deals with the crew on a regular basis. We definitely did get to see XO a lot later as he's the one who had to conduct the onboard investigation (Captain had to recuse himself).  The command structure on a smaller ship is obviously a bit more informal, but a destroyer like Arleigh Burke class has over 300 crew. I have no problem understanding his protective instincts for females rather than accept them as colleagues. It's just an attitude, it didn't prevent him from doing his job. He's merely... too blunt, which is why I don't' see him as the captain.

As for Abby... Uh... she's almost catatonic, then became almost codependent on either the captain or the medical officer. That is actually understandable. She was so used to being ordered around. It took a little while for her will to come back. And I know that they pretty much had to get married by the end. But with her dependency issues I honestly don't see her settling into the "navy wife" role as Eric will be away for months at a time. But perhaps being around other navy wives and families is what will give her a stable home to recover from her nightmares, so it's not out of the question.

I guess my main problem with the overall story is there doesn't seem to be a struggle that maintains the tension. Things just... happen, and there was never any doubt it can go only one way. That's not a very exciting story to read, despite the emotional turmoil, the character arc for both, and so on.

Category: Military

Primary Plot: Navy Destroyer Captain Saved Pregnant Girl From the Sea and Fell for Her, but he had to save himself and his command first

Tropes: protector, military

Overall Rating:  3/5 (rounded up from 2.5/5)