Review of "Until There Was You" by Jessica Scott(This boo...

Review of "Until There Was You" by Jessica Scott

(This book is set to be released October 8, 2012.)
Captain Claire Montoya is a dark-red-haired, loyal army officer who is  trying to get her team ready for deployment. However, there are a few problems:
-Training for sending troops to the scorching desert is taking place in the frigid mountains of Colorado. She's freezing her butt off.
-Command (in typical Upper Management style) places a higher value on Power Point skills and Equal Opportunity training than on combat effectiveness. She feels that such a command climate creates bad leaders who end up doing stupid things that get people killed.
-And then there's Captain Evan Loehr. Evan is a West-Point-bred and by-the-rules captain who has "practically got ‘Duty, Honor, Country’ tattooed on his ass." He causes Claire no end of (more than one kind) of frustration.
Here's a little excerpt as she tells her oldest friend and fellow army captain:
“Sarah Anders, get ready to meet Captain America himself.”
“You know him?”
Oh yes, she knew him. Many a long night in the tactical operations center downrange had been spent fantasizing about those shoulders, along with other parts of his anatomy.
Stupid hormones.
“Wring out your panties, honey, he’s not someone you want knocking on your door.”

What Claire can't see is that he also has a soul-searing secret that has welded him into the man he is.
And underneath her tough exterior, Claire has reservations and defenses herself. In an argument with Evan, Claire states:
 “Being a soldier is the only thing I’ve ever been good at, and no matter how hard I try, I’m always screwing things up. Nothing we do matters.”
But Evan knows: “That’s not true. You matter.”

At first I thought the story was going slowly, and I was getting frustrated at the tension build-up and then break-off. (But I'm a man; we're kind of like that.) But it definitely fits with their characters as well as their military careers and command responsibilities. The fuse maybe a slow-burn, but when it explodes...
I also enjoyed the side characters: Claire's oldest friend and fellow army captain Sara Anders, who's husband died in Iraq. And Reza Iaconelli, the heroic SFC with a drinking problem that even the strategic use of pineapple juice can't help.

I found "Until There Was You" wryly humorous in unexpected places, but most of all very emotionally powerful.