REVIEW: Falling for the Marine by Samanthe Beck
Dear Ms. Beck:
Like many books these days, the love relationship between the couple happens nearly instantly and the conflict comes after. In order to enjoy this book, you have to overlook that. Chloe Kincaid is a massage therapist who works for a temporary agency that places her all over the US. Her latest gig is in San Clemente with the Camp Pendleton Massage Therapy Clinic.
Chloe’s got restless feet. She doesn’t like permanent relationships and the itinerant nature of her current position suits her perfectly. In a series of incredulous but somewhat plausible events, Chloe ends up getting kicked out of her temporary housing and ends up staying with her neighbor, Major Michael McCade. Michael is a Marine helicopter pilot grounded due to a sciatic back condition. He’s ordered to get massage therapy which he doesn’t want to do. (He’s so uncomfortable he leaves his socks on – a visual I found hilarious).
Chloe’s massage is so fabulous that she and Michael start fulfilling the age old assumption about what really goes on in those massage rooms. While Chloe acknowledges their cliched encounter with the phrase “Happy Endings” I’m still left wondering why Chloe, a professional, would let things get so far out of hand. I guess they are just so swept away by their passion for each other?
Chloe and Michael are put in the position of needing something from each other. Chloe needs a place to stay and Michael needs for her to pose as his fake fiancé. What follows is predictable and the two suffer what most do in a fake engagement. There isn’t anything surprising in this book but the narrative is swift and the banter is quite good. Not just the bedroom banter but the banter between Michael and his doctor friend as well as the interaction between Michael and his CO. In fact, their exchange at the very end of the book was one of my favorites – a perfect injection of humor at a black moment.
This is a category book and there isn’t any deep exploration of feeling and because the narrative moves by so swiftly, there isn’t any lingering over a particular feeling, not a high or a low. I found Chloe irritating at times (rearranging someone’s furniture when you’re a guest seems like the height of rudeness to me). I understood I was supposed to find her flighty but I didn’t think she needed that characterization. Her inability to settle down was due to past failed relationships and the trauma of her parents’ ugly divorce. That she was trying to find her chi in some rude and silly way detracted from her rather than made her character charming.
I didn’t love the first McCade book because of what I felt was unnecessary slut shaming and the good thing is I didn’t see that in this book anywhere. The sex is just as hot. Michael is a dirty talker (my fave) and even though I didn’t like Chloe moving the furniture or acting like a dumb ass at her place of business, I still found her character appealing. It’s low priced and I think a reader gets the value of the $2.99 so long as she goes in with the expectation that its a fun, sexy contemporary that will occupy a couple hours of her time. C+
Best regards,
Jane
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So after reading the discussion of pet peeves yesterday, I’ll go out on a limb and guess that massage therapists should stay away from this one! I think the assumption about “what really goes on in massage rooms” is one that drives legit, professional massage therapists nuts.
Not only is it likely to drive the professionals nuts, but frankly, I think it’s a tad irresponsible of the writer.
My opinion, I freely admit is a more than a bit coloured – I know / am related to various people who are physios / massage therapists, and from their experiences, the ‘assumption’ is not only aggravating, but creep-making and occasionally, dangerous.
I’m not sure why it catches me the wrong way so much, but I think it’s the difference between erotic fantasy and more normative fantasy. In the one, there are boundaries, it’s quite clearly a fantasy and in the other the more real-world presentation (imo) dangerously blurs lines that shouldn’t be blurred.
So…I am a Registered Massage Therapist in Canada, have been for 16 years, did two years of training (mandatory in Ontario) and am registered under the Regulated Health Professions Act. Not only would my College yank my registration in a heartbeat, but I could be charged with sexual abuse for even having a conversation that is sexual in nature.
From the College’s website:
The RHPA defines sexual abuse as:
Sexual intercourse or other forms of physical sexual relations between a health care professional and a patient or client;
Touching, of a sexual nature, of a patient or client by a health care professional;
Behaviour or remarks of a sexual nature by a health care professional towards a patient or client.
Any sexual relationship between a registered health care provider and a client of either sex is professional misconduct. It does not matter if you, as a client, started or wanted the sexual involvement – the health care professional will be held responsible. A professional found guilty of sexual abuse as defined by the RHPA can lose his or her registration and right to practise.
Not sure if it is different in the States, but either way, I would totally cringe my way through this book.
I had a massage therapist friend who started to feel attraction for her client, so she had to cease treating him.
This premise is an instant turn off for me. I expect it would be for many of us who get therapeutic massages regularly. I mean, yuckerama!