Review: Once a Marine – Patty Campbell

A one-night-stand, or the first day of forever?

BD James is on an upward career path. She works for a tyrant who has already cost her one fiancé, so the last thing she needs is another manipulating man. She’s tired, angry, and ready for a meltdown. What she isn’t ready for is Rafael Cruz—a retired Marine who lives a secret and dangerous double life.

Rafi Cruz is a man who makes things happen, but his timing couldn’t be worse. He’s leaving on a hostage rescue mission in two days, which means he won’t have time for a long slow seduction. He’ll have to work fast, or the hot little BD will slip right through his fingers. She’s the only woman in a long time who’s been strong enough to challenge him—a quality he values highly. He’s reluctant to change his footloose life, but he’ll do whatever it takes not to lose her. She’ll understand. Eventually…

But when BD learns Rafi has deliberately kept her in the dark about his black ops missions, she questions whether he’s the kind of man she can trust, and if he can be as faithful to her as he is to the Corps…

Series:
Release Date: June 5, 2013
Publisher: Etopia Press
Source: Provided by Author/Publisher via Manic Readers
Reviewer: Michelle
Rating:

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Reviewer’s Thoughts

B.D. James is climbing the ladder to success while watching her love life grind to a halt when she meets former marine, Rafael Cruz. The heat level intensifies as the couple decides not to fight their attraction. That’s where the storyline gets bumpy and sort of drops off.

The character development was lacking in my opinion. I didn’t feel connected with Rafael or B.D. I didn’t feel pulled into their story, and I never quite bought that they were a “real couple”. B.D. seemed to enjoy abuse, and Rafael seemed to enjoy sex but want to maintain his distance. There was never a point where it seemed their characters just meshed as a couple. It was a very sort of stilted and awkward relationship. Some of the dialogue was melodramatic (cried scalding tears?). From the beginning some of the character actions were just unrealistic to me ( having a first tryst at an hourly motel as an adult and believing it to be romantic?). I just didn’t see enough chemistry between B.D. and Rafael for them to fall in love after one encounter.

The storyline was entertaining with high drama near the end. There were times while reading this book that I couldn’t quite determine the direction of the story. The author did a fantastic job of including very rich, descriptive details within the book. Most authors give details about a situation because they are foreshadowing an event to come and will reference back to those details. I didn’t read that in this storyline so I felt that using such extensive detail lengthened the book without a payoff for me as a reader. I was also curious about why she stopped including details about their intimate times together. The author reels the reader in with hot details in the first encounter and then skips out on all detail in most of the other encounters. I was puzzled as to why there seemed to be almost an erotic romance at the beginning to a very sweet romance at the end rather than consistency with the heat level throughout the book.

The book was a series of hits and misses for me and an average read.