MWSA Review

Winnie had carefully planned how she’d tell Max the news about baby Maeve. Unfortunately, she didn’t follow her own script.

Navy Rules is a romance with a naval aviation backdrop. Winnie Armstrong feels she has finally regrouped after her husband’s death. Five years after his fatal attempted landing aboard an aircraft carrier, she heads successful knitting and yarn concern and balances single parenting her two daughters. Then Commander Max Ford returns to Whidby Island. Winnie’s late husband, Tom, was the father of their oldest daughter, Krista. Max, however, is the father of eighteen month Maeve, something Winnie never told him. Complicate this with Max’s recovery from shrapnel wounds and PTSD from a tour in Afghanistan, add in Winnie’s therapy dog, Sam, and watch the old chemistry between Winnie and Max try to break through both their respective hurts.

Geri Krotow’s novel neatly handles the romantic tension between Winnie and Max. Both her main and supporting characters are sympathetic and their reactions to Max’s reappearance understandable. Krotow blends in the service aspects of the story well, never overloading the reader with too many acronyms or arcane references. The title itself refers to the core of Winnie and Max’ dilemma, that Navy buddies don’t steal each other’s sweethearts, while they are still alive. But afterwards, that is another matter. All in all, Navy Rules is a satisfying and easy read. 

Reviewed by: Barbara Peacock (2012)

Author's Synopsis

Wounded during a military rescue, Commander Max Ford returns to a naval base on Whidbey Island to recover. And part of his treatment involves working with a therapy dog. Max is surprised to learn that the dog's owner is Winnie Armstrong, widow of his closest friend. She and Max were close in those months following her husband's death. But they drifted apart, until that one night two years ago. The night friendship turned to passion…

Now he's even more shocked to learn that Winnie has been keeping a secret from him. A baby girl. His daughter. It's even more important he heal so he can be a part of his child's life—and Winnie's. Because all the attraction that pulled them together that one night is still there…only stronger.