GRR Reviews Military Romance: The Lieutenant's Musician by Kathleen Hope

The Lieutenant's Musician is a military romance between a female lieutenant Ash and a civilian musician Cas. The romance was okay, but the military background of Ash seems to be extremely vague, as if the author was not sure about Ash's MOS (i.e. what role in the military was Ash. There's some talk about medical field, but as what?) The ending was problematic due to what lead to the "darkest hour". Romance was.. okay.

Ash is a military medical personnel, the lieutenant, who made friend with Cas the musician. Ash is best friends with Amber, who's in love with Mickey, a bandmate of Cas. The romance developed, as originally they don't like each other much, but they made great friends... Until Ash and Amber were called up for deployment... and Cas preemptively broke things off because he can't deal with it. Ash and Amber survived their 2 year stint, and came back, will Cas and Mickey still be there?

Really? Pre-emptively broke off the relationship because he can't stand her leaving, even though she all but begged him to wait for her?

Also, deployment for TWO YEARS? What sort of unit is this? Deployments in the army last 3 to 12 months. It can go longer if the unit was stationed elsewhere, but that means something different entirely. This just doesn't sound right. And this wasn't the first book where the author messed up the military details. In her other books she had a colonel calling a sergeant his "superior officer" (and it was not in jest), and in a different book she had a SEAL lieutenant who displayed no sadness upon losing his entire team while he rescued the pretty female doctor, among other implausible scenarios.

While I applaud the author for tackling the "left behind" issue of military personnel, I'd appreciate more fact-checking and characters that are more mature than acting like a spoiled kid, i.e. "you can't leave me, I leave you first!"

In the end, I believe the unsympathetic MMC and the rather implausible deployment details to force a conflict made the book below average despite tackling a theme that was rarely discussed in military romances.

Category: Military / Contemporary

Primary Plot: Lieutenant Ash wooed by a Musician Cas, but she's leaving soon, and he ain't sticking around...

Tropes: different worlds, performer

Overall Rating:  2/5