Forget Me Not (Navy SEALs, Book 1)

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Navy Seal, Gabe Renault, wouldn't let anyone stand in the way of his success in the military, including his wife and step daughter. Determined to let nothing disturb his concentration and his career he distances himself both emotionally and physically from the both of them. Then one operation goes bad and suddenly he is held hostage with nothing but time on his hands and all he can think about is getting back and making amends.

The world thinks Gabe is dead and the news is met with both relief and shock by his wife, Helen. She can finally get on with her life and stop loving a man who does all he can to put up walls between them. But a shocker comes just as she is getting used to her new life, Gabe is alive and on his way home to her.

The past 3 years are a blur, Gabe can't remember his wife, stepdaughter or the mission that went wrong and he feels like someone is determined to keep it that way.

After so many rave reviews about this book, I have to say... I don't get it. It's not a bad book, by any means; it's just not the greatest, either. I don't know if I was in a mood or what but I had been reading this book for what seemed like forever, when actually it was a little over a week, simply because it seemed to drag on and on. I could not get into it, therefore I found myself setting it down, a lot. By page 200 and something I still felt like nothing really happened and we were covering the same ground. The back and forth between the hero and heroine wore a little thin and I felt I never got to like either one of them.

I am told by others who weren't that crazy about this one that the series gets better, so maybe I will give it another shot with book two. I am interested in some of the side characters, particularly the one featured in the next book, so I am hoping that will add to the enjoyment. But for right now I am going to take a break and read something else.

Cherise Everhard September 2008

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Forget Me Not (Navy SEALs, Book 1)

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I had high hopes for this book, I like military romances and the idea seemed interesting.
I must admit that the actual execution of this book falls short in Many areas. The story is about a navy SEAL who lost the memory of the past 3 years, forgetting his wife and step daughter after spending a year in captivity.

First of all, I believe that it could be one third shorter, with proper editing. I have encountered pages upon pages of repetitive paragraphs, telling us the exact same thing, with slightly different adjectives.

The Characters are not very well developed. Gabe - The main hero, comes across as an uninteresting generic hero blob. He wants to be a WARRIOR again but thee doesn't seem to be any genuine feeling behind any of his words. In her haste to convey the aughts that he is supposed to be suffering the author forgot to include any endearing or interesting characteristics for her hero. Helen, the wife has remained for me as a flat as a pancake throughout the story. She is supposed to be regaining her independence from Gabe as well as her overbearing father, however, other than being told these things out front, we see no traces of this in her conduct through the book.
Mallory - 13year old daughter of Helen and an unnamed men, has been written into the story only to showcase the hero as a loving and doting parent. Even though Helen and Mallory supposedly only had each other for the first ten years of Mallory's life, there are no interactions between them in the book which could attest to such a bond. Mallory is supposedly thrilled to see her new dad, which had, according to the author, ignored her for the course of 2 years, and had been absent completely during the third.
Even given the fact that this book is ultimately a Romance novel, there was no need for this character if the author wasn't going to put the time into developing the intricate - teenager/mom relationships, even a little.
For example, after Mallory runs off, Gabe is the one very worried and concerned about her, while Helen apathetically tells him that Malory is probably hanging around somewhere. Gabe comes off as concerned, while Helen comes off as neglectful.

The characters are almost identical when it comes to patterns of speech and behaviour, other that the character of Master Chief Sebastian, who ads the occasional Spanish word or phrase, which is not nearly sufficient enough to make a charter different or interesting.

In addition, the bad guys a really bad, even comically so. They think evil and do evil, cowardly and treacherous to the bone. Supposedly being former SEALs themselves, there is nothing interesting or humane about them. The antiheroes need to be as interesting as the Hero, or at least make the reader intrigued in some way. Otherwise we don't care if they get beaten or not, and frankly, by the end of this book I cared for none of the characters, good or bad.

The only character I really felt for had been the dog Priscilla.

In conclusion, the plot of this book was hammered together between excruciatingly long narratives about the angst the hero and heroine are going through. The characters are one dimensional, spark no interest and not even remotely believable. The author spends too much time telling us what we should see or feel, instead of showing it through character interactions.

There are better romance novels out there, for your hard earned money: Linda Howard, Iris Johansen to name a few, and if you are particularly interested in SEALs: Suzanne Brockmann.