Because of You, by Jessica Scott

     Jessica Scott, the author, is career military, in the Army, as is her spouse. I suspect the reason the book seems so real is because she’s seen it and done it all, as have her characters. 

     The heroine, Jenn St.  James is a nurse and breast cancer survivor.  She has yet to accept the disfigured body her mastectomy left her with.  Jen is very happy to be alive, but considers herself damaged goods.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Our hero is Shane Garrison, who Jen meets the night before the platoon sergeant and company are deploying for a year.  They share a hot kiss that neither of them can forget. It keeps Shane sane during his long nights in Iraq. Shane has an extremely high level of perfectionism and taking care of his troops, leaving little to no time for himself.

     About 4 months in to their deployment, a bomb blast sends Shane and a few others from his platoon back to Fort Hood Hospital, where Jen works.  Shane wakes up with both legs and one arm in a cast.  Several of his men have lost limbs.  Shane is totally aggravated and surley that he can’t be up and about to be   there and help his men.  The men are all grown up and most are married, but Shane can’t focus  on himself because he’s too worried about them.  Jen tries so hard to convince Shane that in time he will heal and be able to get back to his men, but nothing is moving fast enough for Shane.  He does take his anger out on Jen a time or two, and fortunately because of her job and own brush with cancer, she understands where Shane is coming from very well.    

     The love story advances, though not very quickly.  There is a lot going on in this book, both with Shane and his men who were injured. It’s nice to read a book written from this perspective, as you get to see what military life is like not only for the soldier, but the entire family.  This is where the author’s background shines.  I read a comment that says this is not a military romance, it’s a romance with military characters and I would agree with that statement. There are no scenes from the battlefield, so I felt the label of “Military Romance” was a bit misleading. 

     The hospital scenes were very realistic.  I have heard some complaints about the catheter removal scene, obviously made by people who do not have a medical background.  Stuff like that happens folks, and it may have happened even if a nurse other than Jen removed Shane’s catheter.  The other scenes, physical therapy and the overdose were also very well played out.     Jen’s cancer also played a leading role in the story.  She was worried how Shane would accept her body, but as she got to know Shane better, she should have figured that would not matter to him.

       This was a very emotional book, and for me, who is not one to cry over a book, I shed quite a few tears.  Why not a better rating?  Because I turned the page, right in the middle of another issue and that was the end!   I have never seen an ending as abrupt as this one. Then, there were complete chapters of several more books coming out by different authors, when that space should and could have been dedicated to a decent ending for this otherwise wonderful book.  

Rating:  A-,    warm       (due to  the abrupt ending)