Showing posts with label Kathleen Hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kathleen Hope. Show all posts
GRR Reviews Military Romance: Into the Crossfire by Kathleen Hope
NOTE: This book's ASIN number has changed from its original B01MZHHNG5 and thus this review has been edited and published under the new number.
Into the Crossfire marketed itself as "military romance" (heck, it's even on the cover and in the title!) but the author clearly has NO concept of military other than some Hollywood movies, resulting in a patently absurd scenario that simply makes absolutely no sense.
Caleb's SEAL team was to recon a drug lord's compound when they witness a rival gang's attack on the compound. A woman and a young girl were caught in the middle. The order was to observe only, but the lieutenant in command of the SEAL team made an insane decision to expose himself and try to rescue the young girl, and was almost blown up by a mine. Seriously wounded, he was stuffed into the trunk of woman's car and driven off the property and cared for, and as he recovered, he realized he's in the home of the drug baron he's was recon'ing, even as he learned of the woman and the girl (not mother/daughter by blood) and fallen for the woman...
The problems are quite numerous, and thus, SPOILER AHEAD
YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!
1) The lieutenant reminded his men to not engage, but chose to expose himself to MAYBE save a kid? Which he didn't even succeed? WTF?
2) The rest of the team just allowed their leader to be stuffed into a possibly hostile woman's car trunk?
3) Nobody at the firefight noticed anything? They just conveniently killed each other?
4) She never noticed the guy he stuffed into the trunk was wearing digicam, MOLLE harnesses, helmet, and other stuff that a SEAL would wear, instead of simpler weapons carried by the gangs?
5) How does a little woman manage to stuff a big SEAL wearing full combat kit into a car trunk any way?!?!?!!
And this is JUST the beginning of the book! This absurd setup is just to get the SEAL leader alone so he can romance the drug baron's woman! The rest of the book SPOILER!!!!!! had him playing hide and seek in drug baron's garage! it's absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!!!!
This is NOT the first book that the author has with fact-checking issues and creating patently impossible or implausible premises.
Category: Military / Romantic Suspense
Primary Plot: SEAL leader violated his own orders, failed at his objective, and left behind by his team to romance drug baron's woman? WTF?!
Tropes: SEAL, different worlds, woman in peril, protector, evil ex
Overall Rating: 1/5
GRR Reviews Military Romance: Her Soldier Boy by Kathleen Hope
NOTE: No longer available on Kindle! Had to link to paperback version.
Her Soldier Boy had severe fact-checking issues and some karmic payback problems. The romance works, as is the constant back forth, but the lack of karma on the "evil" folks makes for a depressing read. And the fact-checking issues shows the author seems to lack general military knowledge or even willingness to fact-check her own premises, and this is a CONSISTENT problem with her "military romances".
Regan was working in a cafe when Daniel walked into her life. Daniel was in town looking for his ex-wife and son. He was a MOH award winner but suffered from horrific burn scars and other wounds, and Regan was the only one to see through the scuffed exterior to see the man that he was. When the ex-wife was found to be happily married and had no intention allowing any visitation rights, Regan and Daniel went on to love each other but have to work through their own inadequacies, as ex-wife's deceptions were revealed.
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD
This book is in serious need of a karmic top off. NONE of the evil and mean people got any karma, seriously. The evil ex-wife? She only married Daniel because her daddy will not release her trust fund. And Daniel is not the baby's father! In other words, she was fooling around while Daniel was off to training and officer's school! Just before his deployment she sprung the "I'm pregnant" excuse, knowing he can't defer deployment. And what sort of evil ***** drop off divorce papers while her husband was lying in a hospital bed unconscious with serious burns? The evil heartless kind, of course. She doesn't even care for the baby but employs babysitters! And there was NO KARMA! WHATSOEVER! She got one suit ruined, that was it! Oh, and Flo, the older waitress in the Cafe? CONSTANTLY yapping about nobody in the military can be trusted, even after Regan got involved with Daniel (then it's "Just wait and you'll see") then when nothing happened, by the end of book Flo got Regan fired for exacting a small revenge (spilling coffee on Daniel's evil ex). Again, NO KARMA!
Furthermore, I don't know what sort of fictional tank is in use in this book, but MOH cannot be awarded for simple accidents and resultant rescue. MOH *must* be earned in combat, and modern tanks don't just "burn up" like that from being driven around then "I smell something burning." And it's CMOH "Congressional" Medal of Honor. The entire background detail was wrong!
This is NOT the first book that the author has with fact-checking issues and patently impossible or implausible premises. If you don't care about facts, this book is not too bad. But we're reading military romance, not science fiction romance, aren't we?
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Ex-soldier in town looking for his ex wife and kid fell for the kind waitress
Tropes: evil ex, small town, waitress
Overall Rating: 2/5 (rounded up)
Her Soldier Boy had severe fact-checking issues and some karmic payback problems. The romance works, as is the constant back forth, but the lack of karma on the "evil" folks makes for a depressing read. And the fact-checking issues shows the author seems to lack general military knowledge or even willingness to fact-check her own premises, and this is a CONSISTENT problem with her "military romances".
Regan was working in a cafe when Daniel walked into her life. Daniel was in town looking for his ex-wife and son. He was a MOH award winner but suffered from horrific burn scars and other wounds, and Regan was the only one to see through the scuffed exterior to see the man that he was. When the ex-wife was found to be happily married and had no intention allowing any visitation rights, Regan and Daniel went on to love each other but have to work through their own inadequacies, as ex-wife's deceptions were revealed.
WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD
This book is in serious need of a karmic top off. NONE of the evil and mean people got any karma, seriously. The evil ex-wife? She only married Daniel because her daddy will not release her trust fund. And Daniel is not the baby's father! In other words, she was fooling around while Daniel was off to training and officer's school! Just before his deployment she sprung the "I'm pregnant" excuse, knowing he can't defer deployment. And what sort of evil ***** drop off divorce papers while her husband was lying in a hospital bed unconscious with serious burns? The evil heartless kind, of course. She doesn't even care for the baby but employs babysitters! And there was NO KARMA! WHATSOEVER! She got one suit ruined, that was it! Oh, and Flo, the older waitress in the Cafe? CONSTANTLY yapping about nobody in the military can be trusted, even after Regan got involved with Daniel (then it's "Just wait and you'll see") then when nothing happened, by the end of book Flo got Regan fired for exacting a small revenge (spilling coffee on Daniel's evil ex). Again, NO KARMA!
Furthermore, I don't know what sort of fictional tank is in use in this book, but MOH cannot be awarded for simple accidents and resultant rescue. MOH *must* be earned in combat, and modern tanks don't just "burn up" like that from being driven around then "I smell something burning." And it's CMOH "Congressional" Medal of Honor. The entire background detail was wrong!
This is NOT the first book that the author has with fact-checking issues and patently impossible or implausible premises. If you don't care about facts, this book is not too bad. But we're reading military romance, not science fiction romance, aren't we?
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Ex-soldier in town looking for his ex wife and kid fell for the kind waitress
Tropes: evil ex, small town, waitress
Overall Rating: 2/5 (rounded up)
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
GRR Reviews Military Romance: Uniformed Love Triangle by Kathleen Hope
Uniformed Love Triangle does portray a love triangle between Devon, a man suffering from PTSD and two women, Ashley has his body, but Jade has his heart. Unfortunately, the military details are very very wrong and illogical. It seems that the author should hire a military fact checker for her novels, as this has been a CONSISTENT problem with her military romances.
Colonel Devon is home on leave and hoping for the quiet solitude but his neighbor Ashley, a socialite who just want some hot NSA sex has other ideas. And it was through Ashley that Devon knew Jade, who was Ashley's best friend. Jade knew that while she was much closer connected to Devon she can never have him because BFF does not steal boyfriends. But when Ashley decided she can't handle Devon's moodiness from PTSD, can Jade step up and get the man of her dreams?
I have no problem with the romance parts of the book, as they are reasonably well done, but the military parts of the book were extremely problematic as if the author just randomly pulled military terms out of a dictionary without learning what they actually mean. Here are some examples.
Please don't write military details if you can't get them right!
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Man away from war, coping with his PTSD is wooed by socialite neighbor, falls for the quieter OTHER neighbor instead.
Tropes: different worlds, triangle
Overall Rating: 2/5
Colonel Devon is home on leave and hoping for the quiet solitude but his neighbor Ashley, a socialite who just want some hot NSA sex has other ideas. And it was through Ashley that Devon knew Jade, who was Ashley's best friend. Jade knew that while she was much closer connected to Devon she can never have him because BFF does not steal boyfriends. But when Ashley decided she can't handle Devon's moodiness from PTSD, can Jade step up and get the man of her dreams?
I have no problem with the romance parts of the book, as they are reasonably well done, but the military parts of the book were extremely problematic as if the author just randomly pulled military terms out of a dictionary without learning what they actually mean. Here are some examples.
- Why is a colonel clearing a house with only an enlisted soldier as backup? That's like the vice president personally manning a dangerous machine in a factory when he had hundreds of people working for him.
- Why would a colonel, who's a commissioned officer, refer to his joining the military as "when I enlisted"?
- Why would a colonel call a sergeant his "superior officer"?
- Why would colonel call his soldier a "trooper" when it's a term reserved for the cavalry regiments?
- Why is a colonel riding a truck when he should have been in a HUMVEE when they hit an ambush? And none of the soldiers had tried to defend themselves? This is more carjacking in LA rather than ambush in a warzone!
- The colonle ran and left his unit behind to die at enemy hands. WTF?!
Please don't write military details if you can't get them right!
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Man away from war, coping with his PTSD is wooed by socialite neighbor, falls for the quieter OTHER neighbor instead.
Tropes: different worlds, triangle
Overall Rating: 2/5
GRR Reviews Military Romance: Saving Sarah by Kathleen Hope
Saving Sarah was clearly "inspired by" the 2003 movie "Tears of the Sun" starring Bruce Willis and Monica Belucci, where a SEAL team was sent to the boonies to retrieve the doctor who does not want to go. However, this pastiche proceeds to separate the lieutenant from his men, and never mentioned his men again. Then screwed up SEAL combat and survival equipment in order to throw in some improbable scenarios.
The problem was almost immediately evident within the first few pages, where the Spanish phrases apparently came out of Google translate. A cartel member dropped off a wounded man who's clearly beyond help, and when no immediate treatment was forthcoming, he yelled "boludo concha!" as a curse. A South American would tell you that the two words don't really go together, and if they do, it would go as "concha boluda" (in Spanish, noun goes first, and feminine form ). This was clearly Google translated, and it was totally wrong because it only makes sense as an insult when it's translated back into English.
Furthermore, the plot was still nonsense because the lieutenant clearly has verbal communication problems. He knew the reason why the Doc was being evacuated (her father, the Admiral, is in poor health, and someone in the chain of command decided to, at considerable expense, to activate a SEAL team to drag her out of the jungle!) The Lieutenant failed to communicate this urgency with the Doctor and instead, let her run him and the team like cadets doing chores and waste an entire evening, and even the next morning, he failed to communicate this, or over the course of several DAYS! It wasn't until Chapter 4 did the author managed to ret-con that the lieutenant was ordered to retrieve the doc WITHOUT her aware of why. Again, this is NOT how SEAL team operates! They are not negotiators! They don't embed like Army A-Teams and mingle with the locals!
Also, where are the supplies? Clearly the SEAL team is not going to trust local water and food, yet they clearly didn't bring rations and water for days just to wait for the doctor to leave. Yet in Chapter 4 it was implied that the SEAL team brought several DAYS worth of MREs with them, as they were in the jungle for over a week! Also, a SEAL team always have a medic, and seems like this one doesn't! As the medic didn't help out with the doc! If not food and water, how about batteries for the radios and night-vis goggles and whatnot?
WARNING: The rest of this review should be considered SPOILERIFIC!
YES, I'll basically ruin the whole book. BEWARE!
Clearly, Doc Sarah here is basically doing ER work, yet triage procedure was wrong. Often, her only prescription was morphine, and morphine is NOT always called for in injuries, as it lowers blood pressure! If there is already massive blood loss, then morphine can make things worse!
The rest of the combat sequences reads like a bad movie script. Bad guys came to raid the camp (why?) The SEAL team can't spot the additional vehicles (1 vehicle spotted suddenly became 6-7) and attackers. Then the team members were never seen or heard from again. In fact, their names were never even mentioned, and the lieutenant seems to not worry about their fate at all.
The SEAL lieutenant no longer has his long gun after having the roof fall on him, but only has his sidearm (he holstered it), but he never seems to run out of ammunition (usually one only carries two magazines), but he somehow kept his backpack which included water and plenty of medical supplies, and enough MREs for two people for several days! SEAL don't carry sealed water... They carry water purification tablets!
Furthermore, a proper mission brief always includes a rendezvous point in case the team lost contact with each other near the objective. Yet clearly this lieutenant never planned one. So his only solution was to go back to the now-demolished hospital, and supposedly find the satellite shack, even though right at the beginning of the book it was mentioned that the storm had knocked out the comms.
Another part that begs belief was "honey as topical antibiotic". Research shows that only manuka honey, which came from New Zealand, acts as an effective antibiotic. Most honey in the world, including those in South America, would not work well as an antibiotic when diluted with fluids from the wound. This is "practically implausible", but I guess it's better than nothing, but why use that when it's standard knowledge that SEAL kit includes antibiotic ointment? It's easily Googled what a SEAL survival kit contained, including a Time.com article on such!
Anyway, the LT eventually killed enough bad guys and was able to rig the radio to summon help to rescue them both, kill a few more bad guys, have sexy times in the jungle, and they fell for each other. They got rescued. The end.
This wasn't the first novel where the author came up with some completely implausible scenario to separate the SEAL squad leader from the rest of his team (who basically abandoned him to his fate) so he can romance the FMC. Basically, you have a generic hot man acting alone after some contrived circumstances separated him from his team and he proceeds to woo and save the FMC. And I'm afraid this is more of the same. The SEALs don't act like SEALs, their equipment is not those of SEALs. This is almost a prime example of "SEAL Abuse" where the author basically imagined some generic romance scenarios and inserted navy SEALs into it. At least this book wasn't set in the US and have SEALs violate US laws (posse comitatus, look it up).
BTW, a lieutenant who lost his entire SEAL team like that will be court-martialed.
Category: Military, romantic suspense
Primary Plot: SEAL team leader, having gotten his team killed, still have to save the pretty doctor from bad guys
Tropes: family pressure, SEAL
Overall Rating: 1/5 (as low as it can go)
The problem was almost immediately evident within the first few pages, where the Spanish phrases apparently came out of Google translate. A cartel member dropped off a wounded man who's clearly beyond help, and when no immediate treatment was forthcoming, he yelled "boludo concha!" as a curse. A South American would tell you that the two words don't really go together, and if they do, it would go as "concha boluda" (in Spanish, noun goes first, and feminine form ). This was clearly Google translated, and it was totally wrong because it only makes sense as an insult when it's translated back into English.
Furthermore, the plot was still nonsense because the lieutenant clearly has verbal communication problems. He knew the reason why the Doc was being evacuated (her father, the Admiral, is in poor health, and someone in the chain of command decided to, at considerable expense, to activate a SEAL team to drag her out of the jungle!) The Lieutenant failed to communicate this urgency with the Doctor and instead, let her run him and the team like cadets doing chores and waste an entire evening, and even the next morning, he failed to communicate this, or over the course of several DAYS! It wasn't until Chapter 4 did the author managed to ret-con that the lieutenant was ordered to retrieve the doc WITHOUT her aware of why. Again, this is NOT how SEAL team operates! They are not negotiators! They don't embed like Army A-Teams and mingle with the locals!
Also, where are the supplies? Clearly the SEAL team is not going to trust local water and food, yet they clearly didn't bring rations and water for days just to wait for the doctor to leave. Yet in Chapter 4 it was implied that the SEAL team brought several DAYS worth of MREs with them, as they were in the jungle for over a week! Also, a SEAL team always have a medic, and seems like this one doesn't! As the medic didn't help out with the doc! If not food and water, how about batteries for the radios and night-vis goggles and whatnot?
WARNING: The rest of this review should be considered SPOILERIFIC!
YES, I'll basically ruin the whole book. BEWARE!
Clearly, Doc Sarah here is basically doing ER work, yet triage procedure was wrong. Often, her only prescription was morphine, and morphine is NOT always called for in injuries, as it lowers blood pressure! If there is already massive blood loss, then morphine can make things worse!
The rest of the combat sequences reads like a bad movie script. Bad guys came to raid the camp (why?) The SEAL team can't spot the additional vehicles (1 vehicle spotted suddenly became 6-7) and attackers. Then the team members were never seen or heard from again. In fact, their names were never even mentioned, and the lieutenant seems to not worry about their fate at all.
The SEAL lieutenant no longer has his long gun after having the roof fall on him, but only has his sidearm (he holstered it), but he never seems to run out of ammunition (usually one only carries two magazines), but he somehow kept his backpack which included water and plenty of medical supplies, and enough MREs for two people for several days! SEAL don't carry sealed water... They carry water purification tablets!
Furthermore, a proper mission brief always includes a rendezvous point in case the team lost contact with each other near the objective. Yet clearly this lieutenant never planned one. So his only solution was to go back to the now-demolished hospital, and supposedly find the satellite shack, even though right at the beginning of the book it was mentioned that the storm had knocked out the comms.
Another part that begs belief was "honey as topical antibiotic". Research shows that only manuka honey, which came from New Zealand, acts as an effective antibiotic. Most honey in the world, including those in South America, would not work well as an antibiotic when diluted with fluids from the wound. This is "practically implausible", but I guess it's better than nothing, but why use that when it's standard knowledge that SEAL kit includes antibiotic ointment? It's easily Googled what a SEAL survival kit contained, including a Time.com article on such!
Anyway, the LT eventually killed enough bad guys and was able to rig the radio to summon help to rescue them both, kill a few more bad guys, have sexy times in the jungle, and they fell for each other. They got rescued. The end.
This wasn't the first novel where the author came up with some completely implausible scenario to separate the SEAL squad leader from the rest of his team (who basically abandoned him to his fate) so he can romance the FMC. Basically, you have a generic hot man acting alone after some contrived circumstances separated him from his team and he proceeds to woo and save the FMC. And I'm afraid this is more of the same. The SEALs don't act like SEALs, their equipment is not those of SEALs. This is almost a prime example of "SEAL Abuse" where the author basically imagined some generic romance scenarios and inserted navy SEALs into it. At least this book wasn't set in the US and have SEALs violate US laws (posse comitatus, look it up).
BTW, a lieutenant who lost his entire SEAL team like that will be court-martialed.
Category: Military, romantic suspense
Primary Plot: SEAL team leader, having gotten his team killed, still have to save the pretty doctor from bad guys
Tropes: family pressure, SEAL
Overall Rating: 1/5 (as low as it can go)
GRR Reviews Military Romance: In the Place We Both Love by Kathleen Hope
Neither the book tile nor book cover does the volume justice in "Military Romance: In the Place We Both Love". The book does not focus on the typical SEAL or Marine romance, or even soldier going home, but instead, is set in NASA training between a Colonel and a Sergeant, both in the Air Force.
Serena overcame her violent father's abuse to become an astronaut trainee in NASA, and she was surprised to find that her instructor, William had taken a personal interest in her. He had a nasty past as well and it seems both fits with each other very well. As Serena excel in her studies she and William had to fight off nasty jealous students and instructors. There were a lot of push-pull as the relationship ebbs and flows, and there was a dark hour when Serena's future in the program was at stake when a student teamed up with an instructor to ambush her. Another came when Serena's parents were invited to her graduation, and it badly backfired.
Somehow though, the novel just feels slow and wordy. Not always, but often enough, like can we get the plot moving again, please? And please get a better cover and title. This book was very different from the "typical" military romance it deserves its special mention, but not enough to bump it to 3.5 stars.
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Astronaut trainee fell for colonel trainer in NASA training program
Tropes: scars, hot for boss, evil parents
Overall Rating: 3/5
Serena overcame her violent father's abuse to become an astronaut trainee in NASA, and she was surprised to find that her instructor, William had taken a personal interest in her. He had a nasty past as well and it seems both fits with each other very well. As Serena excel in her studies she and William had to fight off nasty jealous students and instructors. There were a lot of push-pull as the relationship ebbs and flows, and there was a dark hour when Serena's future in the program was at stake when a student teamed up with an instructor to ambush her. Another came when Serena's parents were invited to her graduation, and it badly backfired.
Somehow though, the novel just feels slow and wordy. Not always, but often enough, like can we get the plot moving again, please? And please get a better cover and title. This book was very different from the "typical" military romance it deserves its special mention, but not enough to bump it to 3.5 stars.
Category: Military
Primary Plot: Astronaut trainee fell for colonel trainer in NASA training program
Tropes: scars, hot for boss, evil parents
Overall Rating: 3/5
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