A review by beckymmoe
The SEAL's Valentine by Laura Marie Altom

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.