Captain Mark Thomas’s world has been tossed on its head: A long overdue but still unexpected divorce. A promotion out of left field. Last-second orders to a ship where careers go to die. As the dust settles in his new home, he barely recognizes his life, but he sure recognizes the loneliness creeping in.Diego RamIrez wants nothing to do with the military or its men. Not after the Navy burned him … burned him both literally and figuratively, costing him his career, his health, and ultimately his green card. Now working illegally in an Anchor Point bar, he keeps the military and its personnel at arm’s length.
But after a single moment of eye contact across the bar, Mark and Diego can’t resist each other. As a one-night stand quickly turns into more, Diego knows he’s playing with fire. Now he can stick around and let things with Mark inevitably fall apart, or he can run like hell and wonder what might have been. One way or another, Diego knows he’s about to get burned. Again.
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Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team
Avid Reader –
M/M Military Romance
Triggers: War injuries, Discrimination, PTSD, Bi relationship.
Mark and Diego are an ‘opposites attract’ type couple when they first meet. Diego is trying to stay under the radar because despite how he was wronged by his country and the military, he wants to be in the US – he wants to be able to support himself and send money home to his family.
Mark is picking up his life and moving forward. He was married and now he and his ex-wife are much better friends than they were a couple. It was refreshing to see such a healthy relationship come out of an unhealthy one.
Mark and Diego had a more friendship chemistry – I didn’t really get heat from their relationship. However, they were great at distracting each other. I wish they had more chemistry, but watching their relationship develop over time was also something that added to the story a lot.
I liked how Mark and Diego took risks throughout, both for themselves and each other. I think that showed their level of commitment. Overall, this was a good story about redemption, love, loss, acceptance, and allowing yourself to believe that there is good out there.
Angie –
I have read all the previous books in this series but it is not necessary to read this book. I hate to say it, but this book really missed the mark for me. I really, really do not like just pages and pages of inner monologue. I need dialogue between characters!! I also dislike it when the same thing is repeated over and over again; let’s not beat a dead horse folks!!! This book had both and it made me lose interest fast. Don’t get me wrong, the chemistry and sex between Mark and Diego is hot but that wasn’t enough for me to love the book. Mark and his poor excuse for cheating and then Diego’s unrealistic issue with his green card were the final straws and made this book a not so good one for me.
Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Once Burned (Anchor Point #6) by L.A. Witt to read and review.
I loved the premise of Once Burned, the sixth standalone in Miss Witt’s Anchor Point series. So far I’ve read four titles in the series and liked the characters in all of them, but what makes this a must read series for me and any fan of military romance is the variety of storylines and characters. Miss Witt does a wonderful job capturing the different personalities, stories, lives, and experiences within the military. Once Burned offered a really unique storyline that explored the experiences of members of the US military who join and fight for the country in hopes of becoming a US citizen and securing a better life for themselves. It was an unexpected and unique plotline for a military romance with interesting, likable characters that I immensely enjoyed.
Once Burned features a romance between a former service member and an active duty naval officer. After being intrigued by Diego in Gone Overboard, I was excited to read his full story, but I definitely wasn’t expecting all I learned. Though the bulk of the angst focuses on Diego’s Green Card status and his anxiety surrounding the possibility of deportation, the story felt balanced between the heroes. Mark and Diego were equally well-flushed out, each with their personal challenges and a detailed backstory. I really liked them as a couple and thought their relationship developed at a steady, believable pace. My only hang-up was some aspects and sore spots in their relationship got to be a tad repetitious as the book progressed, particularly the descriptions of these issues and how they impacted the characters. However, the writing, dialogue, and plot came together very smoothly to create an incredibly unique and interesting story I’d definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys military romances or simply wants a different, unexpected storyline.
*Reviewed for Alpha Book Club*
This is not the first book I’ve read in this series and just like the other books I’ve read, I absolutely enjoyed this story. Diego was wronged by the military so he swore he would stay away from anyone having anything to do with it, that was until he met Mark. The chemistry between these two was off the charts and I was excited when Diego decided to give it a chance. This couple definitely had their moments of insecurity and doubt but with the connection they had everything they faced was worth the risk. Not too many ex-husbands and ex-wives get along but I enjoyed the relationship Mark had with Angie, it just goes to show that ex’s can get along. I love that this author will donate some of the royalties from this book for a fantastic cause and this in no way affects my review of this book. I enjoyed this story a lot and I look forward to reading more books by this author and in this series. The only thing that stopped me from rating this book 5 stars, was that some parts seemed a little repetitive but even with that, this was a great story. I definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a great m/m military romance read.
*A copy of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley and I’m freely giving my honest review.*
This was a good 4 star read and this is why:
* Good storyline, a little abrupt ending but the epilogue saved it.
* Well written characters
* Love scenes that was hot but tasteful described
* No unnecessary descriptions of surroundings
* The amount of dialogues was enough but barley…….
* Feelings is present at times and I felt a little emotional when Diego had some challenges because I can to a degree relate
* Diego and Mark is building a relationship slow and steady which made it realistic
Good mm romance I most certainly recommend.
The good:
50% of the author’s royalties from sales of this book will go to charities that support U.S. Military veterans who have been deported or are at risk of being deported. That’s awesome.
This book brings a terrible and not often publicized issue some much needed attention: people who fought for this country and were promised citizenship for their service who were later denied citizenship or deported.
Just like book 5, Once Burned can be read as a stand-alone that makes perfect sense without having read the first five books in the series.
The bad:
Repetition. I almost didn’t bother finishing this book because I was sick of re-reading how Mark was military, and Diego couldn’t date someone in the military. I lost count how many times this was rehashed throughout the book, but it became so irritating that I had to start skimming when the same dialogue came up again and again. It was so unnecessary and added nothing to the story except page length.
Where was this dark side Mark kept talking about in his failed relationship to his ex-wife? Yeah, he cheated, but so did she. To me, there was nothing dark or original about that, nor was that enough of a reason for Mark to go around claiming to be awful at relationships. As a character, his problems were nothing compared to Diego’s, so he didn’t have the same presence or weight that Diego did.
The situation that Diego was in was terrible, and I was truly sympathetic, but I also had a big problem with one aspect of his situation: he never once accepted that he was partly responsible for his circumstances. Yes, he was kicked out due to the Navy’s idiotic practice of letting statistics in a computer program decide a person’s fate, and yes, he was severely injured when a lot of this happened to him, but here’s the thing that was brushed over: he had years, YEARS, to complete the paperwork for naturalization, and he didn’t do it. If he wanted citizenship as badly as he claimed, why did he put off doing that one thing that would have guaranteed him that? Remember, he was injured during his second deployment, so he made it unscathed through an entire first deployment and could have done the paperwork any time during or after, and he didn’t. Amidst all of his blaming the Navy for his problems (and 90% of that was completely justified), I would have liked one time, one sentence, where he admits that he is somewhat responsible.
I am not sure what the first four books in this series were like because I’ve never read them, but Once Burned was not as good as Going Overboard, and there was just too much repetition for me to enjoy it.
Read more at boysonlybookclub.wordpress.com
Expected publication: April 9, 2018 by Riptide Publishing.