4.5 STARS ✮ JANE HARVEY-BERRICK ✮ BATTLE SCARS

BATTLE SCARS

Jane Harvey-Berrick

✮✮✮ 4.5 STARS ✮✮✮

From the dusty plains of Afghanistan to the sleek corridors of the New York Times, journalist MJ Buckman seeks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. What she doesn’t expect to find is a man who’s her complete opposite … and fits her perfectly.

Marine Sergeant Jackson Connor knows that relationships don’t work for men in the military. He’s living proof of that. But when a steely-eyed temptress in a flak jacket, who carries her moral cause in front of her, crosses his path, he’s furious, curious, and all kinds of in-lust.

A grown-up love story about two people who aren’t looking for love, but realize how precious it is when they find it. They don’t play games and there are no stupid misunderstandings, just life standing in their way.

Can they compromise? And what does that look like in a modern relationship between two driven people?

Assignment Vs deployment.

They’re always traveling in different directions. What relationship can survive that?

Having never read a Jane Harvey-Berrick novel before, I went in with no expectations other than knowing I had to read Battle Scars after reading the blurb.

Our relationship had been born from the most desperate of situations, warmed by friendship and respect, heightened by our physical attraction, and tempered with the threat of losing it all in an explosion of dust and violence.”

We often see the heartache those left behind face when a loved one is deployed, but what happens when the boot is on the other foot? When it’s the marine who loses his heart to a woman who has a successful career that also places her in life-threatening situations? Something Sergeant Jackson Connor is all too aware of after he saves the life of the New York Times’ foreign correspondent, Maggie “MJ” Buckman in Afghanistan.

I would never forget this man or this moment.”

I loved how these characters were portrayed and, rather than being overwrought with angst, it brought realism as Maggie and Jack quickly realise that their feelings for one another run deeper than either has ever experienced and what they have is worth fighting for. Yes everything happens fast, to a degree a bit too fast considering their first acquaintance, but together they have a magnetic chemistry and I appreciated how Maggie’s career was as important as Jackson’s and the fact he never questioned that, along with their reluctant acceptance that they’d be apart for long periods of time.

I’ll never like saying goodbye to you.”

This story had so many facets which kept me glued to the pages and I felt every moment of Jack and Maggie’s joy and pain and can say with some certainty that Jane Harvey-Berrick will be an author I read again as her writing-style worked well for me. But not only has she brought her reader a wonderful, and I should say very sexy and at times humorous, love-story with strong memorable characters, she reminds her reader of what’s important and of past events we shouldn’t forget—the exact reason why we should love and hold on tight to what, and who, really matters.