Book Reviews

Book Blurb

At the beginning of WWII in the Pacific, two unlikely heroes are thrown together on a deserted island. Their mission, to intercept Japanese radio transmissions, spot enemy ships and aircraft, and stay alive for three months until their replacements show up.

Sargent Mike Dabrowski is a man forced into this mission—do it or spend the rest of the war in the brig for selling contraband on the black market. He’s the complete opposite of the man he’s been charged to keep alive. Mike is part criminal, part soldier, and a lot rough around the edges, but he’s got the survival skills, and the grit and experience necessary to do the job.

Professor James Hamilton, Ph.D., is an intellectual, a man who can speak Japanese and break codes. He’s also a conscientious objector. His refusal to kill another human has landed him here, putting his skills to good use in the war effort. Until he finds himself alone on an island with what his wealthy family would call “rough trade.”

Together they have to survive, do their jobs, and get along.

But on a steamy deserted island, those Pacific nights can get long, lonely and so so hot.
They’ll make it, but only if they can get past their misconceptions about each other and allow the heat that flows between them to bubble to the surface.

As long as the Japanese don’t find them first.

First edition published by Loose Id, May 2009.

Book Review

Two men on a deserted tropical island in the Pacific could lead to a hot and sultry tale of endless sunny days on the beach, tropical cocktails, and lots of naked fun. Not so in this story – Mike and James have a whole set of issues to deal with and their stay on a deserted island is anything but a vacation. The story is set in World War Two, the Japanese are a constant threat, and their mission of intercepting Japanese messages and decoding them is crucial to the American war effort. They are isolated, have only each other to rely on, and the sexual tension is as vehemently denied by Mike as it is real. With nowhere to go and no future even if they manage to figure out how to deal with their emerging feelings, a catastrophic ending is pretty much guaranteed.

Mike is quite a character. He is an enlisted American of Polish descent, Catholic, almost proud of his lack of education, and always has some money-earning scheme or another going that gets him into trouble with his superior officers. The mission of protecting a code-breaker for three months is Mike’s ticket out of military prison, and while he is not happy about having to deal with some intellectual, it is better than incarceration. Right?

James is a pacifist who refuses to fight and kill people, but he is super intelligent, a mathematician, and has made a deal with the Army to decode the enemy’s messages for three months in exchange for his freedom. He is Jewish, grew up as part of the high society of Boston, and gay. He can’t be open about it without risking severe punishment, but he knows what he wants and has been careful enough to escape discovery so far.

These men could not be more different if they tried, but they have one thing in common – they are both attracted to men. Mike has vehemently suppressed the “urges” he has been taught are sinful, so when he begins to see James as an attractive guy, his denial ramps up. James knows what he wants and is very patient, cleverly saying and doing just the right things to let Mike come to the “right” conclusion. Their affair is not an easy one, but the passion between them is explosive once Mike lets go and admits what he wants. They know they only have three months – and yet they find a way of making it work.

If you like happy-endings-against-the-odds, if you want to watch two strangers deal with an attraction that is illegal and considered immoral by most of their compatriots, and if you’re looking for an intensely emotional read in a beautiful, tropical setting, then you will probably like this novella as much as I do. It’s suspenseful, surprising, and I adored the ending!

 

 

 

 

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Additional Information

Format	ebook
Length	Novella, 96 pages
Heat Level
Publication Date	08-May-2018
Price	$2.99 ebook
Buy Link	https://www.amazon.com/Pacific-Nights-Lynn-Lorenz-ebook/dp/B07CKNJG72