The 13 of Hearts - Book Beginnings on Friday and The Friday 56

      A young mother on the run. A Marine coping with the aftereffects of war. Those are the major conflicts in The 13 of Hearts. The author does a great job of conveying her characters' thoughts and fears. She goes deep. I enjoy the way she reveals their pasts, little by little, with surprises along the way. Pete and Lin don't fall instantly in love--both of them have a lot of baggage--and this story is much more than a simple boy-meets-girl romance. 
      The 13 of Hearts is Book Five of the Heart Stories and is a sweet romance with no sex scenes or profanity. It is free of typographical and grammatical errors, which I always appreciate.
      *FYI: In honor of her late friend, author Monique O'Connor James, Kay Springsteen is donating royalties from the sale of this book to author Kristine Cheney for her fight against breast cancer.

Book Beginning (Prologue):
War. It's not just a string of constant bloody battles. More often than not, you find yourself watching ... and waiting... Because that other shoe? It will fall. -- From the Deployment Survival Journal of Pete "Rabbit" Kincaid

Friday, December 13, 2013
Waiting always felt as pleasant as swimming in a stagnant pond. Rabbit hated it. Some nights, though, he wished the waiting would go on for just a few hours longer.

The Friday 56 (from 56% on my Kindle):
Gloom settled over Rabbit, as real as twilight falling when the sun went down. It might as well be a sunset. The sun setting on his life.

Genre: Contemporary Romance / Military
Length: 399 Pages
Amazon Link: The 13 of Hearts
Author Blog/Website: The Romance of Your Life

Synopsis from Goodreads:
      Peter "Rabbit" Kincaid wasn't always superstitious but after several deployments with the US Marines, he's picked up a few quirks. His last tour of duty didn't go so well, and now he's back home recovering from injuries and awaiting clearance to get back in the fight. The fight is about to come to him in a different way. 
     Melinda "Lin" Doyle is a two-time US Marine widow on the run from the fallout of an incident that threatens to separate her from her two children. Making their home in a motel where she works for board and half pay, with her oldest child attending school under an assumed name isn't her idea of being Mother of the Year. Then again, neither is being at the center of a murder investigation. 
      Rabbit believes everything happens for a reason so when he and the young family cross paths multiple times over the course of a couple of days, he pays attention. Lin would rather the handsome Marine officer take his attention elsewhere before he ruins everything. How can they ever get along when everything they do appears to be at cross purposes?
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