The Book: Stranded with the Sergeant by Cathie Linz
The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Silhouette Romance # 1534, 2001, Book 2 in series, Out of Print, Available Digitally
Why Was This Book In Wendy's TBR?: Linz was responsible for starting RWA's outreach to librarians and spearheaded those efforts for many years. This book was published several years before I started regularly attending conferences and I have an autographed copy. My guess is I either won this in a contest or Linz sent it to me as part of a congratulations package she sent to me in honor of my RWA Librarian of the Year award in 2011. I suspect it's the former though...
The Review: The book I was reading prior to starting this ended up being a DNF because of pacing issues and my general disinterest, so I'm happy to report that I wasn't disinterested in this book, I kept reading it, and I zipped through it rather quickly. All signs that Linz knew her way around the category format (the misconception being that category is "easy" to write). Unfortunately I ended up having a few issues with the story, making this one a mixed bag for me.
First things first, it's got the sort of preposterous plot that could only exist in a category romance novel. Sergeant Joe Wilder (of course his surname is Wilder - it's how we know he's the hero!) is a fairly new arrival at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina and has been called into his CO's office. Joe has been tasked with giving a class of pre-teens a tour of the base with instructions to watch out for the Commanding Officer's daughter, his "little princess." Oh, and after the tour, Joe will be escorting a smaller group of the students with their teacher into the mountains for a weekend in the wilderness. Joe is not excited by this detail but when he enters the conference room things start to look up because the teacher is very pretty. He, of course, starts flirting with her, only to realize his error. The CO's daughter, the "little princess," isn't a student - she's the teacher.
Prudence Martin grew up a military brat and has no patience for Marines. Her father's over-protective nature, a prior bad relationship with a Navy man - well she's not interested in dipping back into the military dating pool. Sure, code, honor, loyalty, blah, blah, blah. She's past done with insufferable men who always think they're right. And here comes Joe Wilder, all slick talk and flirtation. No thank you ma'am.
These two get off on the wrong foot and start rubbing each other the wrong way from the jump, which of course is really hiding a sizzling attraction. Eventually what happens is that a freak spring snowstorm finds the wilderness party taking shelter in a cabin and the simmering pot starts to boil over.
If you can get past the plot of some random Marine being tasked with taking charge of a school field trip without any prior authorization from the school (Joe is a last minute replacement for this assignment), what will await you? Well it's pretty much as advertised with some niggling issues that are partly to blame on the book being published in 2001 and partly on the need for a keener editorial eye.
Mel Gibson's name is dropped a few times, in relation to Joe's piercing blue eyes and good looks. Yes, 2001 - five years prior to Gibson's infamous traffic stop - but this is yet another example of why authors really, truly, need to avoid celebrity comparisons and keep pop culture references to a minimum. Best case scenario? It dates your book exponentially as the years tick by. Worse case scenario? Mel Gibson. Mel isn't the only such example in this story though - the book features some pre-teen secondary characters so what they're interested in, what they think is "cool," definitely has a 2001 feel to it. The first Matrix movie for example. Also, one of the students has a Palm Pilot. Oh, those were the days!
A lot of this stuff though rolls off my back. No, the bigger issue is the fact that there's a throw-away sentence about the heroine seeing somebody who happens to be out of town for a family wedding. The guy is mentioned once (in the heroine's internal musings) and never mentioned again. Like, she's getting warm for Joe's form and there's not even a single thought bubble about this poor schmoe that's out of town at a family wedding. I mean, even if it was still in the casual stage, you're hooking up with some dude while he's gone - like, I'd pause for half a second. And given that this is a Silhouette Romance Joe ends up proposing marriage at the end of the book and still - no mention of this poor schlep who the heroine was dating who happens to be out of town?!? It felt like something that should have been left on the cutting room floor entirely. Instead here I am obsessing over what ends up being a throw-away sentence that doesn't go anywhere.
One of the things Joe and Prudence have in common is that they both have Survivor's Guilt lurking from incidents in their pasts, which was a nice touch. Unfortunately Linz doubles-down on Joe's baggage and throws another piece of luggage to the pile towards the end to explain his reticence around kids. It felt a bit out of left field for me, almost like a piling on. Like truly - the helicopter crash was honestly enough yo.
Then there's the heroine's over-protective father being all paternalistic and some "not like other girls" nonsense that creeps in towards the end (the heroine is, of course, a natural beauty and doesn't need a bunch of make-up or red lipstick to look pretty which just makes me want someone with long acrylics to show up on the page and claw the hero's eyes out...) - but these are issues that aren't exactly uncommon in category romances of a certain age, or even of a more current vintage unfortunately. It boils down to how much stuff like this irritates you.
So what am I left with? Well, it was an easy read, Linz hit her beats, and it kept me turning the pages. But I didn't love it and it was about half a step down from "OK" given my niggles. Would I read another Linz category romance? Yes. I didn't love this, but I also didn't hate it - and Linz handled the format well, which in a category romance is half the battle.
Final Grade = C-
Postscript: Linz passed away in 2015.
