~REVIEW of Marliss Melton's FORGET ME NOT~

Forget Me Not (SEAL Team 12, #1)

Opening Line: "Gunfire rained down on the four-man SEAL squad, ricocheting off the concrete floor and metal walls of the warehouse in Pyongyang Harbour, North Korea.”

Navy SEAL Gabe Renault has no memory of the last three years. He doesn’t remember the mission that went wrong landing him in a North Korean prison camp and he certainly doesn’t remember having a wife and teenage daughter. And while the scars on his body tell a tale of torture he has no idea what they did to him or if he eventually broke, betraying his country. The doctors tell him he has PTSD and that given time his memories will return, but he knows the brass are also thinking the amnesia may just be a convenient way to cover up his disgrace at giving up government secrets. Meanwhile he’s been placed on disability leave, given a cocktail of drugs, and told to go home to his family, a family he doesn’t remember.

After Gabe was presumed dead Helen Renault did her best to pull the pieces of her and her daughters life back together. It wasn’t really all the that difficult, Gabe had never been home, always off on some mission and then even when he was he was he’d been distant, secretive and abrupt. Now she’s standing on her own two feet, with friends, a job she loves and a life. When the call comes in telling her Gabe is alive Helen decides that she’ll help him through his recovery but then she wants a divorce. What she hadn’t counted on was that the man returning is nothing like the Gabe she remembers, this is a man she could lose her heart to and spend the rest of her life loving.

With Gabe’s memories coming back Helen puts her heart under lock and key fearing it will only be a matter of time before the “old Gabe” re-emerges and breaks it again. Of course the men trying to kill him and his returning knowledge of government treason may put an end to their second chance at love before it begins anyways.

This is the first book from Marliss Melton’s SEAL team 12 series and also my first from this author. As a whole this was a great read, probably more romantic then suspenseful with a Brockmann-ish feel, slowly unravelling storyline, lots of great secondary characters and a reunited lovers theme which is one of my fav’s. I did have a problem with some of the dialogue being stilted or age inappropriate, as was the case with the teenage daughter and unfortunately the ending went off into silly land but I will definitely be continuing on with the series. Hoo-yah, another SEAL team to get to know.