Come Back to Me by Mila Gray is by far the most gripping of her three love stories, it alongside Stay with Me and Run Away with Me. The group is not a trilogy, but Come Back to Me and Stay With Me both have military themes, follow roughly in chronological order, and share a few characters. Although Run Away with Me shares the theme of abstinence before explosive, and descriptive, sexual encounters, it mostly sticks out like a sore thumb for me. But that’s another story.

Come Back to Me is a riveting love story whereby its author wastes no time (this is my one and only criticism, that the story is so contrived, the world is too small, and coincidences are too convenient for reality.) The descriptions are nothing short of awesome, and the reader is captured by their intensity and uniqueness. Quickly, suspense grabs the reader to make the book genuinely ‘un-put-downable.’

Eighteen-year-old Jessa Kingsley falls in love with her brother Ryley’s best friend and fellow marine, Kit Ryan. Kit and Jessa knew each other as kids, but when their romantic love finally blooms later in life and is off to a good start, Riley and Kit are deployed to the most dangerous spot in Afghanistan, and one of them doesn’t make it back home.

The reader is faced with quite a dilemma deciding who to hope for–should Jessa be loyal to her brother or true to the love of her life?