SEALed with a Kiss- Simply Romantic

[odanu]

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

SEALed with a Kiss is simply wonderful.

Why can’t more romance novels be like this?

No, really. Why can’t more romance novels be like this?

SEALed with a Kiss by Mary Margret Daughtridge has solid plotting, without coercion or excessive acts of God, characters that you can really relate to, a child who isn’t just a plot device, a hero you want to invite into your own bed (and life)…

And to top it off she writes with compassion and grace about the difficulties of maintaining a relationship while in a military at war. And she writes knowledgeably about counseling boundaries and the difficulties of using one’s counseling skills in one’s personal life (a difficulty I know well).

A storm is brewing in more senses than one at the beginning of the novel. Navy SEAL Jax Graham’s ex wife has just died, and he is starting to build his relationship anew with his son, Tyler (without much success). While closing up Tyler’s grandmother’s home on the Sound before the hurricane hits, a chance meeting with Pickett Sessoms shows him a glimmer of hope in his quest to be a father to his son.

From here it’s just a matter of overcoming obstacles and getting to know one another before our hero and heroine fall in love, but the obstacles are convincing, and both characters are interesting to get to know.

Genre gets a bad rap because a lot of books get published for the genre market that aren’t ‘up to snuff’ for the general reader market. People who love a particular genre will ignore a lot of flaws to get their fix. Romance has its share of ‘OMG I can’t believe they published that’ books, but SEALed is at the other end of the spectrum, the sort of story that crosses into excellent general fiction.

For romance readers and people who love positive, realistic portrayals of people in the military, this is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it. The library copy I read is badly mangled, testifying to the love this little paperback has endured on its way to my hands. If you’re a romance re-reader, this is a buy and hold book.