Ranger

Kayla Barton

Feb 23, 20226 min read

Updated: Mar 18, 2022

Ranger

by Katie Rae

Nothing is guaranteed.

Nothing is a given.

We can only plan for things that we know and understand.

Fate takes care of the rest.

After years of being an Army Ranger, military life was all I knew and understood.

I planned on being a Ranger for as long as I could be, climbing the ranks and being a hero to my country.

Nothing else mattered.

Then fate came along and I fell in love. She became the one thing that mattered more to me than army life, which meant the plans were no longer mine to make.

They were ours.

Unfortunately, we waited too long to make those plans and tragedy struck. My guaranteed happily ever after was gone.

Leaving me broken.

Unpredictable.

A liability to my team.

I was grasping on to memories in a never-ending loop of pain.

Now, my command was forcing me to make a decision on my career— alone. And just like before, I was having a hard time letting go of army life.

Only this time, my decisions weren't based on love.

They were based on revenge.

So while fate was trying, once again, to pierce me with her love arrows, I was busy planning the only thing I knew was a given in my life.

War.

Spice Level: 2.5/6

Story Score: 8/10

Rating: 5/5

On the EROS Challenge game board I landed on “Disability or Wounded Warrior” as one of the books I needed to read. Gotta admit, I wasn’t excited. I don’t like to have my heart broken. I know that’s not a fair reaction. I specifically can think of two different wounded warrior stories that I’ve read and I enjoyed them both, however, I’ve never searched for them. Usually they were just in the middle of a series I was reading and ya know, ya gotta read ‘em all!

Anyway, so I was looking for something to fit this category (not gonna lie: I really tried to squeeze books in here that weren’t the intended trope) and I came across the book Recon by Katie Rae. It sounded good, but when I clicked on it, it didn’t come out until tomorrow. I didn’t want to wait because I’m an impatient booger. Ranger was below it on the list, so I read the description for that.

It sounded meh.

Those reviews though.

Ok, so if you haven’t read the reviews for it: DON’T!

Ah, I’m so torn about this. Ok, so I would not have finished this book if I hadn’t read the reviews. However, reading the reviews put me at an unfair advantage while reading. That’s not the point of this book. Y’all, my spoilers on this one is going to be long.

My point is: if you think you want to read this book based on the blurb, do it. And when you get the desire to quit, don’t. It’s not even 300 pages, it won’t take you that long. Power through. Then come back and tell me thoughts. You're going to think it hits some triggers that I'm not listing, but KEEP READING. (But actual TW: off-page abuse)

In the most broad terms: I’m thrilled that I read this book.

Did it fit my category? Not the way I had planned, but yeah, I think so.

A lot of people complained about the language in the book because the author didn’t use a lot of contractions, but since I knew that was coming, I was easily able to read them differently. It didn’t slow me down in the least.

-SPOILERS-

**rubs hands together**

LET’S GO!

Ok, so every review will tell you that the twist was good. There’s a twist, y’all! There is!

But let’s start at the beginning. This is gonna be a minute.

WARNING!!! I AM GOING TO SPOIL THE WHOLE BOOK RIGHT NOW!

This starts with Drew, an Army Ranger, being dropped into the middle of a forest for a training exercise. His goal is to find his way out. He doesn’t want to be there, but being a ranger is really the only thing holding him together. Not even a day in, he finds a woman laying on the ground, cold and unconscious. Being the super hero (soldier) that he is, he takes care of her.

Olivia is home alone for what supposedly is the first time in a long time. She doesn’t know what to do with herself and within the first first pages (chapters?), she loses it; all she can remember is fear and pain. She gets scared and takes off running away from the house.

Cue our meeting.

Now Drew gives her the option of being rescued. She doesn’t want to be rescued because she’s scared she’ll have to go back to the place she fears, to the person (presumably her husband) she fears. Instantly smitten, Drew wants to protect her and let’s her make the decision that they won’t call for help.

They spend like 4 days in the forest: talking, falling in love, having sex, etc. disregarding the fact that Olivia is running from her husband.

Then they get rescued and bomb drops: Drew is also married.

Back in the real world, Olivia moves in with her mom (her dad seems to have left) and gets a job. Drew, unable to stay away from her, goes to see her. She’s obviously hurt that he has a wife and she wants answers, but she decides that she wants him more than those answers, so she takes whatever “crumbs” he gives her.

Insert more falling in love.

Drew eventually tells her that he has to go on another mission, his last mission. She doesn’t want him to go because she knows it’s something to do with his wife. He explains why he has to.

His and his best friend’s wife were kidnapped and brutally tortured and abused. His friend’s wife was killed and even though his own wife is alive, it changed his entire world, and this mission is to punish some people responsible. Not wanting to distract him further, she breaks it off with him and tells him that she’ll be there when he gets back. He’s hesitant, but does as she asks.

The day he’s leaving, Olivia decides she’s going to confront her father for not being home when she needs him. Trying to calm down, she ends up walking through the cemetery looking for his friend’s wife’s grave that Drew had taken her to the previous week when telling his story. She trips and falls and instead finds her dad’s grave.

All the pieces snap into place.

She is Drew’s wife. She is suffering severe PTSD and her brain is struggling to heal. She forgets large parts of who she is and who he is entirely. This is the seventh time they’ve fallen in love again.

This book was a combination of the movies The Vow and The Notebook, with a side of military thrown in.

Gah. I can’t. Both of those movies killed me. Broke my heart into a million pieces and then tried pasting them back together in random places.

Obviously, knowing that there was a twist, I watched for everything. I noticed the details. She knew she was going to be alone for two weeks. His training was supposed to be two weeks. He says that her story of being a “kept woman” is one he’s familiar with but, I mean, how many “kept women” do you know? He frequently didn’t ask questions that he would’ve never known the answers to if he didn’t know her already. He dodged around answering any question that would’ve given the truth away too soon. She had run away from the house and when they’re rescued, the soldiers tell him that there was an issue with his wife (because they didn’t know she was with him, so they thought she was lost). He’s instantly incredibly protective. How quickly they seem to fall in love is almost off putting because it’s cheesy and such. He knows how to touch her. When she comes the first time, she starts to say Dr–-, even though at that point, he hasn’t told her his name. He gives her a thousand little tells that make sense afterward.

I didn’t know how to rate this book. I didn’t. Because I didn’t enjoy the beginning. Cheating isn’t something that I want to read, but I just knew there was a twist coming, so I had to continue. If I wouldn’t have known there was a catch, I would’ve DNF’d! But I knew and I didn’t…and I’m thrilled that I didn’t. So, I’m giving it five stars because at the end, it was clever. The foreshadowing and hints were great. I loved how in love with her he was. His tattoo broke my freaking heart in the best way possible.

Standalone

252 Pages

Trope Challenge:

Military Hero