Civil Affairs

Paige Forbes is a grad student in accounting at the University of Southern Mississippi. She still has her crush from childhood on her older brother’s best friend, Danny Napolitano, and now that Danny is in the U.S. Marines and serving in Iraq, Paige decides to write to him. Even though Danny doesn’t know her feelings for him, maybe Danny will be glad to hear from a friend from home. This action starts Paige down a path leading to decisions about her life.

Danny is grateful to receive Paige’s letters. It’s not uncommon for soldiers to fancy that they are in love with girls who write to them in the field. Is this a real emotion that he is feeling, or just infatuation? Will his love persist when he finally gets home and sees Paige in person?

I picked up this book because I wanted to see how authors were handling love stories using the war in Iraq as their background. In fact, although the hero’s service in Iraq is important to the plot development, it is not the entire plot. There are at least three subplots, each with its own theme. One theme is the love story between the hero and heroine, another is the heroine’s insecurities about her weight and looks, and the third is about how perceptions affect the way we are treated by those around us. The author manages all of these diverse elements with skill, intertwining them in a unified work. I liked the fact that the character of Paige was such a multi-layered personality; I was not as fond of Danny as a character, because much of his development occurred “off-stage,” so we didn’t get to see him make the changes. The character of Paige’s sidekick Tia was also quite well developed – in fact, I hope that Tia gets her own story soon.

This story is definitely erotic rather than sensuous. It has a few explicit and very hot sex scenes, including oral and anal sex, group sex, and a light smattering of bondage. In spite of this eroticism, the sex scenes do not overwhelm the story. I thought Civil Affairs was an excellent book, and very enjoyable.

Reviewed by: Jean