Review: Since the Surrender

Reviewed by Jen
 

Chase Eversea is a military man to the core, but now that the war is over, he is adrift. He deals with constant pain and is trying to figure out what to do with his life when he gets an anonymous letter from a lady, asking him for help. That letter turns out to be from Rosalind, the woman who was once married to his commanding officer. The woman he once loved, but couldn't have.

It turns out her sister is missing and she needs Chase's help to find her. As they work together to figure out what happened to her, they end up embroiled in a much larger plot, where attractive women are disappearing from police custody, left and right.

This was definitely not the strongest book in the Pennyroyal Green series. First of all, Chase was so awful to Rosalind when they first reunited, I was sure she had done something positively unforgivable to him in the past. Only after much reading did I discover that all she had done was kiss him. Or he kissed her and she kissed him back. Yet he acted like she was the devil incarnate. It was ONE kiss that they were both complicit in. I didn't think the way he treated her was fair.

Later, when the two of them finally do start to soften toward each other, they hook up in the most ridiculous and dangerous places imaginable. Like the museum at the center of the missing-girl mystery. Twice. WTH? Once was bad enough, but the second time... just... no. I also struggled to feel a love connection between them. Lust? Yes. Love? Not really. Maybe it's because their feelings developed off-page in the past --but for whatever reason, the sexual tension was much more believable than any romance.

What did work? The wonderful sense of humor. I laughed frequently and out loud. There's a great ongoing gag about puppets that tickled me at every turn. And cows too. (It's too difficult to explain, but trust me when I tell you it's funny.) The sexual tension was good too. Unfortunately, those high points alone don't quite sell the book. I can promise you, however, that later installments in the series are much, much better. 3 stars.

Click to purchase: Amazon

Since the Surrender

by Julie Anne Long

Release Date: July 28, 2009

Publisher: Avon