This “Good Shit vs Shit to Avoid” request comes from Joanne, who is hunting for books to read this winter:
I am looking for suggestions for lovely romance or wonderfully
trashy romance involving a soldier/soldier of fortune, tough guy
in uniform, or one beside a crumpled uniform on the floor. A happily ever
after would be nice. In fact, I require it from my fictional men.
After an incredibly stressful month and searching in vane, I implore you,
please help. The wine is breathing, the phone is turned off (finally) and I
am heroless. It's sad really.
Since Joanne isn't specific about time period, historical, contemporary or even paranormal/UF recommendations are more than welcome. Which books do you recommend that feature soldier/military heroes? This will be one hell of a list, given the scope, to please try to limit your recommendations to your top 2 or 3 favorite books.
And if there's a military or soldier hero romance you don't recommend, feel free to talk about it, but please try to explain why it didn't work for you.
I have read An Infamous Army. I didn’t love it, but it was several years ago that I read it, so I might like it if I reread it now. I seem to remember lots of whining and angst.
Nadine—I hate to disparage a book you have fond memories of, but I’d put Love & War solidly in the STA category. It probably didn’t age as well as you’d hoped.
I haven’t revisited them in awhile, but Heather Graham wrote a number of Civil War-era men-in-uniform romances before she moved in other directions. The One Rode… series is an example.
I’m officially jumping on the Love in the Afternoon bandwagon. It may very well be my all-time favorite romance. I makes me happy in so many ways. I reread it with great regularity.
in the pretty trashy category, Rhonda Nelson’s Men Out of Uniform series for Harlequin Blaze – I haven’t read them all, and they all have a similar flavour, but for hot ex-military now-private-security guys, top quality cotton candy reads
My favorites in this category have to be Pamela Clare’s I-Team series. Breaking Point is the fifth in the series and simply amazing. Unlawful Contact (book 3) is about another former military guy, although he’s serving a life sentence in prison at the beginning of the book. The only hero I’ve ever read who was in jail.
Enough good stuff can’t be said about Maya Bank’s KGI series.
About Lora Leigh—I agree that many of her later books have become predictable and, well, downright bizarre at times. But give her “Nauti” series a try. One and two are good, but it’s book three, Nauti Dreams, with Natches and Shay, that to this day is one of my all-time favorites. (I can’t recommend you go beyond that because the series jumped the shark after that.)