Enjoyed it. My review is located on www.lezficrev.blogspot.com ( )

Several times over the last twelve months or so this novel caught my eye at the bookstore where I work. One of the main characters is a woman dealing with post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) from her experience as a solider in Iraq. There's not a plethora of novels featuring women in the military, which is one reason why this novel stayed on my mind.

I needed to take a break from reading about George Washington and decided to give Battle Scars a try. It ended up being just what I needed: a pleasant and emotionally comforting love story about two women that also gives a snap shot of how one veteran is pro-actively trying to heal her PTSD in a healthy way.

Ray McKenna served in the Army. While in Iraq her unit's humvee rolled over an IED. Ray's leg was broken in the attack. She was serving as a medic and before she could reach the first soldier to provide aid, she was captured by insurgents and held captive. During captivity she witnessed a fellow soldier's decapitation. This information is presented during conversation or flashback; there is no violence depicted in the novel.

The action of the novel starts about two years after Ray's ordeal in Iraq. She's just moved to Bodega Bay in northern California where she plans to eventually build her life anew. For now she's isolating with her therapy dog Jagger, a Great Dane. Ray's only regular interaction with another human is her weekly video session with her therapist. The therapist suggests Ray take Jagger to the vet for a base-line check-up and as a way for Ray to make contact with the outside world.

The vet is Dr. Carly Warner, a woman who lost her partner and their unborn child in a car crash five years ago. Carly is a lesbian. Ray is straight. Things change. Their mutual love of dogs is what leads them into a friendship that eventually blossoms into love and then a romantic relationship. Carly had been doing agility training with her dog, Jack, who is scheduled to compete in an agility competition. As Ray and Carly become friends, Ray takes over working with Jack on the agility course due to Carly's long hours at work. It's nice to read a novel with such such responsible dog owners and well behaved dogs.

I am no expert on PTSD but have some familiarity with it and thought Ray's struggles with it were well done. I really liked both of the main characters (and their dogs!) and how they and their relationship were developed. And although I'm not a fan of romance novels, either gay or straight, (reading sex scenes is not my cup of tea), the steamier scenes didn't seem hokey.

Oh, and a really refreshing aspect of this novel for me was the lack of the obligatory gay-bashing scene or homophobic oaf.

If anyone knows of novels featuring women in the military, I'd love to hear about them. ( )

Good story. I have a family member who suffers from PTSD, so this one hits home. ( )

I really enjoyed Meghan O'Brien's Wild, so I figured that I would give this book a shot, and I wasn't disappointed. I really liked the character of Ray, who was struggling with PTSD after barely surviving in Iraq. The road to a relationship with Carly was a bumpy one, and considering Ray's mental health, that is the way it should be. It's also refreshing to read a lesbian romance when both of the leads aren't perfect; I'd love to see even more diversity in the lesbian romance genre in the future (especially colour and ethnicity, neither of which are present in this book unfortunately).

I really would have liked to see what Ray was like before the PTSD; the author gives us a few hints, and Ray "tells" us and Carly what she was like, but I didn't feel like I got to really experience the character pre-Iraq.

I also liked Carly as a character, but I wish that there had been more time spent on her own "scars." I realize that she needed to be strong for Ray, but Carly had lost her partner and unborn child several years prior to meeting Ray. Carly (and her friend Leeann) does mention that she has issues about commitment thanks to that loss, but they don't really manifest much, even though Carly hasn't had a serious relationship since. I wish that her issues had been explored more, especially with how they would play against Ray's.

I have to say, overall, that I wish that there had just been more. The book isn't particularly short - something like 230 pages (I read the ebook with no page numbers) - but I felt like the details of their burgeoning relationship were. A lot of the first outings and "dates" were glossed over, and before you know it, the characters were in love. It felt a lot more like telling instead of showing.

But the book is still quite good; I'd probably recommend it to most people. And Meghan O'Brien writes some of the best lesbian sex scenes I've read in romance, and this book is no exception. ;) ( )

Quite good book. I was going over my email right after I finished and noticed that I'd bought it at 12:55 pm. Meaning that I couldn't get myself to stop reading and it was finished in less than four hours (it was 4:50 pm when I wrote this line).

There was a particular 'theme' that gets into these books for some reason. Repeatedly used. That of a straight woman who suddenly realizes that she might actually not be as straight as she thought, at least for "you". "Lesbian for you". That popped up in this book. I don't particularly like that type of book, and was beginning to get a little worried, but enough back story, and story, moved it out of that realm. Out of that theme. (One of the annoying 'things' about that theme, beyond it popping up so much, is that these books never seem to consider the idea that anyone could be, you know, bisexual. Nooo, everyone's either 100% straight, gay, or "gay for you" (which would make them, I guess, 99% straight, and 1% gay, but because "you" are involved, they are all in on this "gay thing")).

So, two things I tend to steer clear of if I can. That 'straight woman realizing she isn't actually straight hooking up with a lesbian woman who doesn't want to be burned by a straight woman who is just experimenting' theme. And the one I didn't mention yet. Sex. I tend to mostly skim those scenes. Mostly because it never seems believable. So, both were there. Yet I loved the book. I even liked the sex scenes. ( )