Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Between Ghosts
AUTHOR: Garrett Leigh
PUBLISHER: Riptide Publishing
LENGTH: 246 Pages
RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2016
BLURB:
In 2003, journalist Connor Regan marched through London to add his voice to a million others, decrying the imminent invasion of Iraq. Eight months later, his brother, James, was killed in action in Mosul.
Three years on, Connor finds himself bound for Iraq to embed with an elite SAS team. He sets his boots on the ground looking for closure and solace—anything to ease the pain of his brother’s death. Instead he finds Sergeant Nathan Thompson.
Nat Thompson is a veteran commander, hardened by years of combat and haunted by the loss of his best friend. Being lumbered with a civilian is a hassle Nat doesn’t need, and he vows to do nothing more than keep the hapless hack from harm’s way.
But Connor proves far from hapless, and too compelling to ignore for long. He walks straight through the steel wall Nat’s built around his heart, and when their mission puts him in mortal danger, Nat must lay old ghosts to rest and fight to the death for the only man he’s ever truly loved.
REVIEW:
Argh…how much did I love this story…let me count the ways…
In my opinion this is Garrett Leigh’s best book to date, and if you’ve never had the opportunity to read this author before, this is the perfect place to start. If you like your military romances to feature more than tough pretty boys who are big on talk but never get the opportunity to back that up with some on page action, well this book is for you. I always try to avoid comparing books when writing reviews, but for this one I’m making an exception. Between Ghosts strongly reminded me of Kendall McKenna’s Strength of the Wolf series – sans wolves, obviously. Not because the storylines were at all similar, but because you get the sense that the author really knew what they were talking about. You feel immersed in the military world their book inhabits but at the same time you aren’t lost in a landslide of military facts that leave you in confusion. Instead everything you read and learn is exciting and realistic. Well, as realistic as you can really get while sitting safely on your couch in a first world country, reading a romance. But you get what I’m saying, right? To be honest, I have no idea if everything military the author included is a complete fabrication, or wrong information, or a non-military view of what goes on in the armed forces… And to be even more honest, I don’t care. My brain was convinced that it was being shown a lifelike depiction of the horrors of war, and I was totally happy with that.
The foundation of this story is Connor Regan’s struggle to deal with the death of his brother, James, who lost his life fighting in Iraq. Connor hopes that understanding why James was fighting, why any of these men and women are fighting, will allow him to lay James’s ghost to rest. (And that isn’t a literal ghost btw…just to be clear). Connor manages to make it through a year of reservist training and receives permission to embed with an SAS team as a journalist, writing a column for an English newspaper. Sergeant Nathan Thompson is the war hardened soldier (Vicki, you’re probably yelling that he’s not a soldier he’s a…whatever SAS people are called. But I don’t know what that is!) put in charge of keeping Connor safe. Nat is disgusted that he has to waste time towing along a journo hack, but instead of discovering the inept idiot he’s expecting, he finds the love of his life.
Now when I say he discovers the love of his life, it’s not as instant as all that, however it does happen startlingly fast. And the author absolutely sold it to me. In the course of Connor interviewing the men he’s found himself living alongside, there’s talk of how everything is more intense in a warzone. Every moment that you’re alive counts. Connor and Nat don’t mess around and deny their attraction, and that careers swiftly into something deeper, rather than slowly meandering its way there. The sex scenes are few and for the most part, not very explicit, yet despite that the passion between Nat and Connor is undeniable. I think I’ve used the word intense a few times already but if I had to choose one word to sum up this story, then that’s the one I’d pick.
Between Ghosts isn’t simple and pretty, there’s dust and death clouding every scene, but that just makes the light and love that does manage to break through shine all the brighter.
This was one that I didn’t want to put down and I know I’ll be reading again in the future.
RATING: 
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