Stark September

Stark Trilogy, Book 1

Romance - Sizzle
422 Pages
Reviewed on 03/16/2016
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Hello! My name is CD Bradley. I am a 30 (something) medical provider in an emergency room and an urgent care. I am also a mother of five children, a farmer, a homeschool science teacher, and a multisport racer. A couple of years ago as a treat for passing my board re-certification I read the Fifty Shades series that all the nurses had been talking about. I was surprised by how drawn into the story I felt. I watched the nurses hungrily gobble up book after book. I started to dabble with writing mostly to satisfy that part of my brain that had been turned on by the series. They say you begin to write what you know. So I began with a fantasy. What if instead of meeting my husband in the ER... what if I met him on a base? I started bringing in chapter at a time for the girls at work to read. The audience grew until there were women from every department and a few outlying clinics following the story. This story is completely fictional but has been influenced by those around me, things I've witnessed, or heard of. I tried very hard to be authentic to each location. I interviewed service men and women. I spent some time with the band Qiet who directly influenced key chapters. The book became a journey of its own. I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I have writing. Now I must go and finish working on book 2. All that I can tell you about book 2 is that it is a bit darker and much more suspenseful.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Stark September: Stark Trilogy, Book 1 is a military romance written by C.D. Bradley. Kira Riley was an army brat, and her mother's devastation after losing her special ops husband when Kira was young made her adamant about never getting too heavily involved with a soldier. While still feeling very much that way, she decided to join up herself to help pay for medical school. The army would pay her tuition provided she do her residency while serving, and she was given the rank of captain. Her first clinic was about to be held on a bright, crisp Colorado morning, but as she was opening the door to her CO's building to file some papers, an angry soldier came barreling out and knocked her back down the stairs. As she tried to make sense of what had just happened, the soldier helped her up and asked if she were injured. When she looked up at him, she had to remind herself not only of her resolution not to get involved with a military man, but also about the strict Army rules prohibiting officers from fraternizing with enlisted troops. But Captain Kira Riley had never seen such gorgeous eyes and the chiseled profile of Sergeant Owen Stark was something else entirely.

C.D. Bradley's sizzling military romance, Stark September: Stark Trilogy, Book 1, is an absorbing and entertaining story about a forbidden and unlikely romance between a poor army brat from West Virginia and a special ops bad boy from a wealthy West Coast family. The author incorporates elements of BDSM in her story, but she does so in a way that will most likely be non-threatening and not at all offensive to the majority of relatively open-minded readers. The love sequences that occur between Kira and Owen, while relatively steamy at times, are gorgeous and tastefully presented, and the BDSM culture and its appeal are referred to as elements independent of the couple's growing love and genuine affection for each other.

Captain Kira is a marvelous character. She's strong-minded, independent and athletic, and she's not afraid of competing across gender lines. Her counterpart, Owen Stark, is the perfect foil for her and seeing the two of them together is a joy. There are lots of intriguing supporting characters to appreciate in this tale as well, from Owen's former roommate Paige and her girlfriend Zoe to Kira's fellow doctor, the arrogant and entitled Dr. Holt, and Owen's ex-fiancee, Simone, a villain the reader can't help but detest almost as much as Kira does. Add to that, the looming specter of a stalker from Kira's past, and you come up with a military romance that delivers on a number of levels. Stark September: Stark Trilogy, Book 1 is highly recommended.