Reviews

Born on the 4th of July by Jill Shalvis, Karen Foley, Rhonda Nelson

ccgwalt's review

4.0

Friendly Fire by Shalvis was my favorite, but I enjoyed all three stories in this HQ Blaze for July 2010. Steamy fun. ;-)

cranberrytarts's review

4.0

So far I've only read the Shalvis entry in this anthology.

I loved the way Josie took care of Cord. She gave him just what he needed to recover. She didn't smother him or baby him, but she didn't let him wallow in self pity either.

Cord was so sexy! I loved that he wasn't magically cured - either physically or mentally - during the course of the novel, but gently healed as time went on.

This was a sweet and sexy novel. Another winner from Shalvis.

joreadsromance's review

2.0

Fairly lacklustre romantic anthology
2 stars

This Blaze anthology is a collection of stories based around military heroes and the woman who love them.


FRIENDLY FIRE by [a:Jill Shalvis|22370|Jill Shalvis|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1532461001p2/22370.jpg]
Cord Madden is stunned to return from active duty to find his best friend and neighbour, Lexi McGowan, pleasuring herself in his shower. He's stunned by his reaction to her but the wounds that ended his career are holding him back. Can they both move past it?

This was a fairly bland story with little in the way of deep emotion. I can understand that recovering from wounds suffered while in the army is tough to come to terms with, but it doesn't really make for interesting reading.


THE PRODIGAL by [a:Rhonda Nelson|61055|Rhonda Nelson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1267325850p2/61055.jpg]
Major Chase Harrison has only returned from Iraq to attend his father's funeral even though there was no lost between the pair. But he still has to deal with his father's secretary, the lovely Rorie Whitaker, who makes his blood boil in a completely different way.

This was the best story in my opinion but still nothing overly special. It was quite sad that father and son could never work things out and while I appreciate that's real life - that's not what I read romance for. The romance was nice but I could have done with a more concrete ending.


PACKING HEAT by [a:Karen Foley|518481|Karen Foley|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1586453485p2/518481.jpg]
Throughout his tour of duty in Iraq, Matt Talbot has been exchanging letters with lovely school teacher, Megan O'Connell. Now that he's back in the US he plans to get to know her a whole lot better.

This was an okay story although I had a lot of trouble believing that a sweet teacher would be so free and loose the first time she met a guy. It again was a little low on the emotion and excitement but wasn't terrible overall.


Personally, I didn't think any of the stories delivered particularly well on emotion or drama and while I did get through it, it wasn't overly exciting or a book I would read again. 2 stars.