Reviewed by Carissa

 

TITLE:  The Only One Who Matters

 

SERIES:  The Only One #2

 

AUTHOR:  Cat Grant and L.A. Witt

 

PUBLISHER:  Samhain Publishing

 

LENGTH:  183 pages

 

BLURB:  

 

No man—and no heart—left behind.

 

Months after a bullet ended his SEAL career, Senior Chief David Flint doesn’t know which is worse: struggling to adjust to life as a civilian, or watching his lover, Lieutenant Commander Josh Walker, leave for one deployment after another.

 

Missing the career he loved—and knowing all too well the danger Josh faces—doesn’t help. And as Josh walks out the door for another assignment, David can feel their relationship cracking under the strain.

 

With so little time between assignments, Josh has no idea how to fix things with David. One thing he’s sure of, though…if they don’t find a way to resolve the rising tension between them, there’s a storm coming they might not be able to weather. But he plans to give it his best shot—when he gets home.

 

Assuming he makes it home alive…

 

Warning: Contains plenty of smoking-hot sex between two dudes who just wanted to be SEALs, not deal with all this romance crap. They went and fell in love anyway, and now have to figure out how to make it work while saving the world and teaching their puppy not to beg.

 

REVIEW:  

 

(Just a WARNING, but since this book is the second in the series, this review is going to have some pretty big spoilers for book one, The Only One Who Knows.  If you haven’t read book one (and you really should) it might be a good idea to give this a miss until you are caught up.  Thanks.)

 

Josh sighed and crushed his cigarette under his shoe. He was exhausted. He loved David so much it hurt, but was that enough? And even if it was, how much longer could either of them deal with this tug of war between Josh’s career and David’s grief over losing his own?

“I’m just not sure if I can handle this.”

I know the feeling, David.

 

Both men have survived North Korea, more or less intact.  They are both alive, in love, and no one’s career is going to go down in flames of shame and misconduct.   But David’s injury means his life as a Navy SEAL is over, and adjusting to life as the significant other of a military man is becoming a bigger challenge than either David or Josh believed.  Turns out watching the man you love willingly walk into danger is a lot more stressful when you can’t walk that road with him.

 

The stress of separation is wearing on both men, and no matter how much they love each other, if they can’t learn to talk, and to change, then nothing is going to weather this newest roadblock in their relationship.  David and Josh have never taken the easy way out, but is staying worth the pain of seeing the man you love hurt so badly?

 

If how much I like a book can be measured in how difficult it is to put a book down, I have to say this series earns top marks.  I had only intended to start this series, maybe get a few chapter read, earlier this week–six hours later I was wrapping up The Only One Who Matters and seriously bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have another book in the series to read.

 

I haven’t read many military-themed books lately. I just haven’t been in the mood, I guess.  But mood or not, these books just struck a chord with everything (I didn’t know) I was looking for.  Fast-paced action, secret romances, forbidden love, and two characters who can handily avoid clichés as well as the bullets of the men who are hunting them down.

 

When we hit this book Josh and David have been going at their new relationship for about a half a year.  David is doing better with his rehab, and Josh is still leading the team into the corners of the world.  They have moved into a house together, and have navigated pretty successfully all those little things that make living together a test of trial and error.  But cracks are definitely starting to show, because each time Josh leaves, David knows exactly what kind of danger he is walking into.

 

I have to say that I loved how this book handled the issues of being the one married to a military man.  Most books I have read either have both men in the military together, or have both men mostly stateside together, for most of the book.  This book does a lot in showing just how stressful it can be to watch the person you love walk out the door and leave you not knowing if they will ever walk back in.  And even more importantly, it shows how difficult it is when they do walk back in.  How the stress of not only knowing that the reprieve is temporary, but of them having parts of their lives and mind that are wounded in a way that can’t do much to heal.

 

Secrets are necessary (and sometimes mandated by law) between David and Josh, but the lives they lead separate from each other is putting stress on the cracks forming between them.  Love is not enough when it is the loving that is hurting the other person.  I felt it was good that they both realized that what they had could actually end if they didn’t talk.  If they didn’t try to find a place where Josh didn’t feel pressured to leave the job he loves, and David doesn’t feel the stress of knowing that every moment they have together comes with a stop-date.  Or that everything they do only serves as a reminder of what David can no longer be.

 

The way that this book played off the ideas of love and loss, was very well done.  It didn’t let Josh and David rest in their happy(ish)-ever-after.  It made them work their way through all the tough stuff they expected, and a few things that they never wanted to have to deal with.  This story tested them, and came very close to finding them wanting.  But by the end, I was so very happy.  And when Josh catches sight of David, in that epilogue, I was smiling so damn much.  These boys may not how to do anything the easy way, but they know how to get it done.  And I enjoyed watching them do it.

 

RATING:  

 

BUY LINKS: Samhain Amazon