In Love and War

Merline Lovelace and Candace Irvin are quite obviously the gems in this book. Lovelace's story is solid as always, but Irvin's Unconditional Surrender truly shines. As the longest story in this anthology, it still got cheated. The plot was fresh and intriguing, complex with backstory and rich with danger and excitement. It deserved to be a standalone.Lindsay McKenna's Comrades in Arms shows that, yet again, her work is stale and cliche, repeating the same themes as all the others with nothing new. If you've read one of her books, you've read them all. If you haven't, well give this one a shot. It's not bad, just old.

As a fan of all three military authors, it was a real boon to find this anthology. In A Military Affair, Lovelace presents a fast paced, action packed story about a female MP and a male photo-journalist on assignment to uncover a rebel weapons cache on a foreign island. Teresa Ross is an MP guarding the plane that brought in a special forensic team to locate the remains of WWII pilot discovered on the island. The two become intertwined first out of necessity, but later out of love. Generally I don't care for reporters as the main character, but Lovelace does a superb job on fleshing out his character. Pete Quinn comes across as a dynamic man with integrity when it comes to reporting a story. In Comrades in Arms, Lindsay McKenna gives us a true romance with a story of a government translator working with the armed forces in Afghanistan. This story focuses more on the developing relationship between the two characters, and the Afghanistan background provides a perfect backdrop to progress the story. In Unconditional Surrender by Candace Irvin, we are presented with a love story with a more gritty setting. Danielle Stanton is a POW; kidnapped from her undercover assignment that Capt. Jack Gage finds while he is working trying to infiltrate a renegade faction during the Kosovo conflict. All three stories are compelling and it is a real tribute to these authors who were able to flesh out these stories with so few pages.

Three fantastic stories by three great authors...what a treat!A Military Affair, by Merline Loveless pits the Air Force's Teresa Ross against photojournalist, Pete Quinn. Circumstances throw them together, but it will take more than that to keep them together...maybe love?Comrades in Arms, by Lindsay McKenna places Captain Taa McCain with Captain Dave Johnson in the heart of the action. Maybe they'll end up in the heart of something else as well? An Unconditional Surrender by Candace Irvin has undercover Captain Jack Gage in the midst of the enemy when he finds the woman he loved and lost, Captain Danielle Stanton a prisoner. She was captured while trying to break a slavery ring...and finds herself being sold to Jack. Can they stop the bad guys...and can they put the past behind them and find a future together??Three stories to steam up your summer!