2 out of 4 stars
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The Relentless American by Sarina Rose is a historical romance book that mixes stories of love and war. Hannah and Daniel are childhood friends who have grown up together and are now facing new more mature feeling towards each other and are thinking about taking the next step in their relationship. It’s complicated because Daniel wants to marry her right away and Hannah wants to be an independent woman. They both have their own passions and beliefs. Daniel is pragmatic in his attitude towards the Vietnam war and Hannah believes strongly that the war is a huge mistake and takes part in protests against it. Their differences are what pull them apart and are what also fan the fire of their mutual attraction.
After marriage proposal by Daniel goes wrong, they drift apart. Daniel goes to war and Hannah grows closer to a married officer and Vietnam veteran Sal Mendoza. When Sals wife dies, their relationship evolves from friendship to something deeper.
At the start of the book Hannah is somewhat flighty in her attitude towards Daniel. She calls him her friend and considers him to be too attentive and pushy in his advances in one sentence and soon after that, he manages to be very hot and sexy when he is being possessive. He tries to woo her and acts like a caring romance hero and she sends him packing because he is a threat to her independence. After he is gone, she feels like sulking that there are no good men out there and she feels so alone. This frustrated me as a reader because it makes it impossible to really connect with her character or care for her.
When she started her relationship with Sal with Daniel always at the back of her mind playing tricks, it seemed this love triangle was just not compatible and would not end well. But as the Daniel storyline fizzles out and Sal and Hannah get more serious, the book becomes more enjoyable and has its moments.
I rate this book 2 out of 4 stars because when I received my book in a Word format, I was quite surprised that even the simple basic grammar check option that this program offers, had not been used to correct the obvious myriad of errors. The past tense use in sentences is off and there are too many mistakes on every page to even count them all. This distracted me from the fluidity of the story and left me with a feeling that no effort at all had been made to check the writing for mistakes.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in war stories and would like to know more about the time when Vietnam war was ongoing and changed drastically millions of lives. For me, although those stories that touched on war were heartbreaking, they were also the most well written part of the book, with real tangible emotion in them.
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The Relentless American
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