Reviews

The SEAL's Valentine by Laura Marie Altom

scoutmomskf's review

5.0

Very good book with lots of emotion. Both Tristan and Brynn had some hard issues to deal with in their lives. Brynn had been widowed when her pro baseball player was gunned down because of his illegal activities. She's living in his childhood home awaiting the birth of her second child and trying to deal with her son's heartbreak. The last thing she wants is to get involved with another man. She can't help her attraction to him though she fights it all the way. She knows he isn't going to stay around. But he is very good with her son who is starting to return to normal under Tristan's friendship. Her biggest issue besides not wanting to depend on a man again was her fear of losing another loved one. Tristan came home to try to come to terms with his own past. His marriage ended because his wife couldn't handle his job. She has remarried and taken their son to California where he hardly ever gets to see the boy. He blames himself completely and it has caused him to lose focus on his missions. He finds himself drawn to Brynn and her son and starts helping out with things she needs and helping Cayden with baseball stuff. He makes it clear to her that he won't be there for long and is bad relationship material anyway. I really liked the way that Tristan kept helping Brynn and how good he was to Cayden. He didn't see the boy as just a replacement for his own son but as his own person. His biggest issue was the guilt he felt over the breakup of his marriage and how he blamed himself. I didn't like the way that he never held her responsible for part of the problems. I could see how much he wanted Brynn and the kids to be part of his life but that he was afraid of messing up again. I really enjoyed the way that their relationship grew over time and how they had to learn to compromise. I loved Tristan's solution to his dilemma.

beckymmoe's review

2.0

This novel started out fairly strongly. Brynn and Tristan's respective baggage and hesitance to get involved struck a chord, and their attraction to one another was nicely written. Everyone else's constant matchmaking eventually got to be nearly as annoying to me as to the main characters, though it did have its moments (Tristan: "We got to playing one of Cayden's video games and she beat the pants off me." His mother: "So pants were off?"). Most of this book would have been a three, three-and-a-half star read for me...until Tristan decided that he had to get back to his job and Virginia Beach--which hello, he's a career SEAL, he's going to have to do. That's when it all went downhill, and fast. Brynn's attitude was over the top, immature, and unrealistic. She knew he was career military, and he was always going to go back--he never lied about that to her or anyone. Her response, though...as an army widow, I just didn't appreciate it. Throwing the Nook across the room crossed my mind more than once, but I managed to hold back. At least by that point I was nearly done with it.

There is, of course, a happy ending, nicely achieved by Tristan. It was a bit of an obvious fix, though, and really had me wondering why on earth he hadn't thought of it earlier (*I* had thought of it already, thanks to my obsessiveextensive reading of Suzanne Brockmann novels!), since it would have solved the initial problem that had him on leave in the first place....

But then of course he'd never have met Brynn. Hmmmm.