A little over a year ago, nurse Jaci Piermont took a chance and became intimately involved with her friend, Staff Sergeant Ian Eddelton. . . only to have him run away, heading back to war.  Now he’s come home, wounded both physically and mentally, and just as sexy and irresistible.  When Ian volunteers to help Jaci make calls to help low income patients in the aftermath of a tropical storm, she can’t say no.  But neither of them counted on the emotions that being together again would stir up.

I really enjoyed Craving Her Soldier’s Touch because it has so much emotion and depth.  Jaci comes from an abusive background and now spends her time helping those less fortunate.  She spends some of her time as a traveling nurse and the rest running a shelter for abused women and their children.  Ian has a serious case of PTSD and survivor’s guilt following a bomb that killed four of his friends and left him with a severely damaged leg.  He was lucky not to have it amputated but, being the only one that survived the incident, he doesn’t feel very lucky.  Both have a desire to help people and it almost makes me feel guilty for not doing more.  They are strong but also have some issues that require therapy sessions.  Jaci has some very definite, and understandable, ideas about her independence and Ian’s ingrained need to protect definitely rubs her the wrong way.  They do a great job of coming to a compromise that works for both.  Ian also agrees to go to therapy to address both his physical problems and his emotional ones.  I always like it when fictional characters admit that they need professional help, that love doesn’t fix everything, and that sometimes their problems are too big to handle alone.  It adds that touch of realism to a book.  My only complaint is that Jaci’s issues aren’t addressed as completely.  She’s started on the path but I would have liked to see a little more about that.  There are a couple of other loose ends but this is part of a duet so the rest should be addressed in her sister’s book, Secrets of a Shy Socialite. Overall, though, I was very satisfied by the way everything was handled.

In Craving Her Soldier’s Touch, Wendy S. Marcus delivers a hard-hitting, heart-warming, sexy story about two people coming to terms with guilt over past actions and learning how to go forward together.