Sailor Proof

The tropes are heavy and the angst is light in Albert's return to military M/M romance. You've got fake boyfriends, best friend's brother, only one bed, virgin MC, and your basic opposites attract. Totally predictable but thoroughly enjoyable.

As the author notes in her acknowledgements, Shore Leave will have a “lighter military vibe” than her popular Out of Uniform series, so we don't see a lot of Derrick while he is actively on deployment. Most of the book takes place at Arthur's annual extended family camp, with the aforementioned one bed. There are numerous detailed sex scenes, but also the chance for Arthur to re-examine some long held beliefs about how his military, do-gooder family members feel about his geeky career scoring video game music. And the way that Arthur and Derrick work together to make the annual family camp talent show a success clearly demonstrates that they make a strong team outside of the bedroom as well as in.

Although Derrick and Arthur are very different men, I had some trouble remembering which of them was narrating the chapter I was reading, and I think Albert could have done a better job of distinguishing their narrative voices. But both of them were such decent, lovable characters that I didn't mind too much that they blended together sometimes. Annabeth Albert's recent series have been hit or miss for me, but I'm hopeful that this strong start bodes well for more tales of Shore Leave. Arthur's brother Calder is next - could his complaint during family camp that he doesn't like kids be a case of ironic foreshadowing?

ARC received from Net Galley in exchange for objective review.