Book picks similar to
Johnny's War by Jim Braly
regional-authors-oregon
1st-reads
favorites-mm-romance
first-reads
The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium Book 1)
Travis Starnes - 2021
Widow Maker: A Novel of World War II
E.R. Johnson - 2012
The B-26--dubbed Widow Maker by the press and the aircrews who flew her--was one of the most controversial aircraft produced in the United States during the war. These young men find themselves confronted not only with doubts about the airplane they are given to fly, but also the sometimes fatal choices made by a military organization unprepared to employ them in combat. Against the setting of World War II Europe, the heart and minds of these young men are revealed as they are forces to make a swift and frequently terrifying journey into manhood. The differences between them, seemingly irreconcilable at first, fade away as they form the ancient bond between men whose lives must depend upon one another in combat. But even after these young Americans make the transition into seasoned warriors, they are still faced with the grim reality that some of them will survive--and some will not.
Adulting
Liz Talley - 2021
She’s been written off as a Hollywood casualty by almost everyone, including her own mother. But handsome superstar Spencer Rome has her back. So does an uncompromising stranger determined to start Chase at square one and help her pull her future into focus. If Chase is willing.Life coach Olivia Han is devoted to “adulting” boot camp therapy. It’s not just her professional specialty, though—it’s also one way to avoid focusing on building a life of her own. To escape the pressures of Tinseltown, the two women head to Olivia’s cabin in the wilds of Northern California. There they discover a place in need of TLC. As they work together to rehab the once-charming cabin, they create a refuge where Chase can come to terms with her unsettled past, and where Olivia has an unexpected reckoning with her own troubling history.For two women doing damage control, this is a time for second chances—in life, in finding love, in forgiving family, and in an emerging friendship that might be exactly what each of them needs to heal.
The Curl Up & Dye
Sharon Sala - 2014
After losing her fiance in the war in Iraq, her zest for life went into decline while added weight crept on. When a new guy arrives in town, LilyAnn embarks on a quest to remake herself from start to finish only to discover that love was always just right next-door.
Wee Rockets
Gerard Brennan - 2011
A gang of fourteen-year-old hoods rampage through West Belfast, indulging in violent street crime and mugging pensioners to pay for cider, cigarettes and sweets. Branded scum by a shocked community and pursued by a dogged local vigilante, the young gangsters’ antisocial behaviour soon escalates into something much worse.
Shame the Devil
Reana Malori - 2020
I was too stubborn to listen and now I’m in a situation I can’t escape. I’ve seen too much. I know too much. Even now, two years after my momma left this earth, I can still hear her voice in my ear telling me to leave and never look back. I thought this was the perfect life, but it was all a lie. Now I have someone else I need to take care of, and if it’s the last thing I do, I’m getting us out of this place.Dallas –I’m no hero. Rescuing damsels in distress is not my thing. But when the call came in to save a woman and her child, what else was I supposed to do? My momma raised me to be a gentleman and to protect those weaker than myself. Plus, if I got the chance to give a little payback to some bottom-feeders who hurt innocent people, I’d take that gift every day and twice on Sundays. Little did I know, once I set eyes on the brown-eyed beauty with tears on her face, and a knife in her hand pointed at my heart, my entire world was going to shift on its head.
War of the Encyclopaedists
Christopher Robinson - 2015
At twenty-three, they had planned to move together to Boston for graduate school, but global events have intervened: Montauk has just learned that his National Guard unit will deploy to Baghdad at the end of the summer. In the confusion of this altered future, Corderoy is faced with a moral dilemma: his girlfriend Mani has just been evicted and he must decide whether or not to abandon her when she needs him most. He turns to Montauk for help. His decision that night, and its harrowing outcome, sets in motion a year that will transform all three of them.Months later, Corderoy and Montauk grapple with their new identities as each deals with his own muted disappointment. In Boston, Corderoy finds himself unable to play the game of intellectual one-upmanship with the ease and grace of his new roommate Tricia, a Harvard graduate student and budding human rights activist. Half a world away, in Baghdad, Montauk struggles to lead his platoon safely through an increasingly violent and irrational war. As their lives move further away from their shared dream, Corderoy and Montauk keep in touch with one another by editing a Wikipedia article about themselves: smart and funny updates that morph and deepen throughout the year, culminating in a document that is both devastatingly tragic and profoundly poetic.Fast-moving and compulsively readable, War of the Encyclopaedists beats with the energetic pulse of idealistic youth on the threshold of adult reality. "A wise and wise-assed first novel...with sweep and heart and humor" (Mary Karr, author of Liar's Club and Lit) it is the vital, urgent, and utterly absorbing lament of a new generation searching for meaning and hope in a fractured world.
Sweets for My Sweet
Dahlia Rose - 2010
Just a soldier walking down a dusty road on his way into the small town he left fifteen months ago. On her way back from a candy convention in Tulsa, Sapphire Payton saw Master Sergeant Eric Dawson and gave him a ride into Paradise, Oklahoma. He had no one, and she felt an urge to take care of the sexy mechanic. He lifted her in arms that were powerful like steel and filled her thoughts with mind-blowing kisses, and he made her feel just as sweet as the candy confections she created.Eric was Special Recon in Afghanistan, and he came home a different man than who he was before. The war had broken parts of him that no one could see. And through the storm, Sapphire became his anchor. She held him through the nightmares, and their loved bloomed into something intense. But can love heal all wounds, and can they weather the storm of emotions when he makes the ultimate decision that could affect both their lives?
Stealth Ops Series Box Set: Books 1-3
Brittney Sahin - 2019
But when a critical mission gets botched by a member of an iconic Hollywood family, he'll have to fight to protect his team's identity, as well as keep himself from falling for the woman who's turned his life upside down.Eva Sharp's the writer and co-producer for the hit TV series SEAL Security. While on break from filming, the last thing she expects is to end up in the middle of a real-life action scene--one that puts her life on the line. At first, she's not sure if she can trust this stranger in the mountains, even if he has military written all over him. But the more time she spends with him, the harder it is to fight the pull of attraction, without also jeopardizing his op.They'll soon realize not everything is as it seems, and Luke will be forced to discover how far he's willing to go to find his mark.Finding Justice:They say the truth will set you free--if it doesn't bury you first.As a Navy SEAL for a covert special ops team, Owen York has no time for relationships. But when he's forced to go on vacation, he finds himself falling for a sexy stranger, a woman who turns out to be linked not only to his latest assignment but to his past. Owen's spent years searching for his brother's killer, but now that he has a chance at revenge . . . he'll have to see how far he's willing to go for justice.After losing her fiancé a decade ago, Samantha McCarthy lives and breathes her job at the Intelligence Committee. She puts everything, especially love, aside--until one day her world flips upside down, and she finds herself at the center of a massive government cover-up. Turning to Owen York for help is her only hope. What she doesn't count on is for him to knock down the walls around her heart.Thrown together on a mission that's as personal as it is dangerous, Owen and Samantha will face their toughest challenge yet--and risk falling for each other in the process.Finding the Fight:Their well-kept secrets are about to unravel.Former CIA officer Jessica Scott and Navy SEAL Asher Hayes have worked together for years as part of a black-ops team for the president, but Jessica's close encounter with death is about to change everything between them . . .As the team hunts down her abductor and tries to prevent an impending attack, Asher will stop at nothing to protect the woman he cares about. But will his actions push Jessica, aka the Ice Queen, further away; or will he knock down her impenetrable walls?With their pasts coming back to haunt them, and their insatiable desire for one another pushing them to the brink, Asher and Jessica will find themselves faced with impossible choices--ones that could topple their very world.In this high-stakes mission, will they be able to find the fight inside of them to win--or will this be one mission that hits far too close to home?
A Wing and a Prayer
M.W. Arnold - 2020
American Doris Winter, running from a personal tragedy, yearns for a new start. Naturally shy Mary Whitworth-Baines struggles to fit in. Together though, they are a force to be reckoned with as they face the mystery that confronts them.Against the backdrop of war, when ties of friendship are exceptionally strong, they strive to unravel the puzzle's complex threads, risking their lives as they seek justice for Betty's sister.
A Lily in the Light
Kristin Fields - 2019
People Esme has known her whole life suddenly become suspects, each new one hitting closer to home than the last.Unable to cope, Esme escapes the nightmare that is her new reality when she receives an invitation to join an elite ballet academy in San Francisco. Desperate to leave behind her chaotic, broken family and the mystery surrounding Lily’s disappearance, Esme accepts.Eight years later, Esme is up for her big break: her first principal role in Paris. But a call from her older sister shatters the protective world she has built for herself, forcing her to revisit the tragedy she’s run from for so long. Will her family finally have the answers they’ve been waiting for? And can Esme confront the pain that shaped her childhood, or will the darkness follow her into the spotlight?
A Beginner's Guide to Free Fall
Andy Abramowitz - 2020
Brothers and sisters. Mothers and daughters. Okay, everybody. Hold on tight.
Davis Winger has it all. A respected engineer who designs roller coasters in theme parks across the country, he is deeply in love with his wife and has a beautiful young daughter and a happy home. Until an accident strikes on one of his rides. Nothing fatal—except to his career. And to his marriage, when a betrayal from his past inadvertently comes to light. In one cosmically bad day, Davis loses it all.His sister, Molly, is at a crossroads herself. She’s coasting through a dire relationship with an incompatible man-child. And she’s a journalist whose deeply personal columns about mothers and daughters are forcing her to confront the truth about her own mother, who abandoned Molly and Davis years ago and disappeared.For these two siblings, it’s just a matter of bracing themselves for one turbulent summer in this redemptive and painfully funny family drama about making the best of the sharp turns in life—those we choose to take and those beyond our control.
Desert Sniper: How One Ordinary Brit Went to War Against ISIS
Ed Nash - 2019
Ed Nash has travelled across the globe, and is working with refugees in Burma, when he first becomes aware of the terrible atrocities being committed under ISIS's newly established 'Caliphate', covering vast tracts of Iraq and Syria. In June 2015, he chooses to undertake the hazardous journey, via Northern Iraq, to Syria, to join ill-equipped and poorly trained but battle-hardened Kurdish forces as they attempt to halt Daesh's relentless advance. Nash is an articulate, insightful and refreshingly honest companion as he unpacks the shifting complexities of the political and military situation in which he finds himself. As one of a motley band of foreign volunteer fighters - veterans of other conflicts, adventurers and misfits, from many different countries - we follow him through his rudimentary training and early combat operations as he and his companions slowly gain the trust and respect of their Kurdish colleagues. Nash shows us the realities of the war on the ground in Syria in fascinating detail; the privations of the ordinary Kurdish soldiers, the terrible price paid by civilians caught in the cross-fire, the ever-present danger of lethal suicide bombers and occasional moments of striking beauty in amongst the carnage. A modern classic in the making, Desert Sniper will prove to be one of the most unforgettable accounts to emerge from the war against ISIS.
Defenders
Will McIntosh - 2014
Our only chance for survival was to engineer a new race of perfect soldiers to combat them. Seventeen feet tall, knowing and loving nothing but war, their minds closed to the aliens. But these saviors could never be our servants. And what is done cannot be undone.