Format read: ebook purchased from AmazonFormats available: Mass market paperback, ebook
Genre: Fantasy romance, Paranormal romance
Series: Monster M*A*S*H #1
Length: 320 pages
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Date Released: August 28, 2012
Purchasing Info: Author’s Website, Publisher’s Website, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository
In the war between the gods…
No one patches up the incoming wounded like Dr. Petra Robichaud. Recruited by the gods for her uncanny medical skills, she’s the best M*A*S*H surgeon in the army. Along with a nosy guard sphinx, vegetarian werewolf, and other paranormal paramedics, she bandages soldiers who are built like Greek gods (literally.) But when one sexy immortal ends up on her operating table—half dead and totally to-die-for—Petra’s afraid she’ll lose her patient and her heart…
Nothing is more dangerous than love
Commander Galen of Delphi is one gorgeous but stubborn demi-god. When his spirit tries to slip out of his fatally wounded body, Dr. Petra has to slip it back in—unwittingly revealing her ability to see ghosts. Now that Galen knows her secret, he’s convinced she’s part of an ancient prophesy. If the oracles are right, Petra could lead Galen’s army to peace. And if he seduces her on the way to hell and back? Heaven knows—all’s fair in love and war…
The story opens with a line straight out of the 4077th M*A*S*H and somehow it manages to go further into hell. Further even than the gallows humor of that movie and TV send up of the Vietnam War disguised as the Korean War could possibly have imagined.
Because this particular unit of “meatball surgeons” is operating next to an honest-to-gods hell vent, behind the lines of a götterdämmerung being fought between the old gods and the new gods.
The old gods and the new gods of seemingly every pantheon ever worshipped. Along with every demi-god they ever spawned. And every mortal with a touch of the uncanny in their veins.
Dr. Petra Robichaud can see the souls of the dead. A forbidden power handed down with the fae blood she inherited from her mother. Otherwise she’s completely mortal. She’ll live out the rest of her life as a MASH doctor in limbo, patching up the wounds of the new gods’ troops.
Immortals can still get injured, and killed, in battle. And there’s plenty of that going around.
What Petra doesn’t know is that the war is going badly for the new gods, and that their doomsday weapon is worse than she’s ever imagined.
But there’s a reason her power to see the souls of the dead is forbidden. There’s a prophecy. (Of course there is!) Someone just like her will bring peace. But a bad guess at the prophecy brings disaster.
Remember Hurricane Katrina? Petra is pretty sure that was her. Since then, she’s kept her head down and her powers bottled up.
Then the next batch of wounded brings her Galen of Delphi. An elite soldier with the power of inspiration, among other things. And Petra decides that she’s just not going to let this one die. So she drags his soul back. And the prophecy is on.
She knows that it’s going to be an even greater hell to bring that prophecy about. And she doesn’t believe, not anymore. But Galen makes her believe in him.
He makes her believe in them. They had both lost all sense of feeling anything, but with that one act of bringing back his soul, Petra has shattered the loneliness that surrounded them both.
It’s too bad that the only way to fulfill the prophecy is to risk everything, to risk her heart, and know that she will lose. In order to win.
Escape Rating B: This is a completely insane idea. A MASH unit in limbo. With a love story.
Once you get past that, it’s a boatload of fun, but like the original M*A*S*H, very much gallows humor. The surgical unit is made up of mostly paranormal-types. Petra’s best friend is a homesick werewolf, and one of their other tent-mates is a vampire. The camp commander is a Spartan. Yes, those Spartans.
Like the original, the doctors and staff are always overworked, overtired, and incredibly homesick. They do over-the-top weird stuff to keep from going completely crazy, and don’t always keep from sliding into depression.
The love story, while it was the core of the story on the one hand, did have more than a hint of insta-love. It’s easy to understand what Petra sees in Galen, but not so easy to see what a demi-god sees in a mortal. That needed a bit more explanation.
On the other hand, the readers understood a lot more of Petra’s trauma than they did Galen’s.
And I’m a sucker for any hero named Galen.
![[photo of Nina Croft]](https://www.readingreality.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Nina-12-150x150.jpg)
Of course there is a Mash unit in limbo, a prophecy and a girl..and a smexy demi-god. Oh and it must be insta-love, i mean with a name like Galen how could it not…hehehe I love the sound of this, and it appears to be a series! So awesome you shared this, it sounds perfect for in-between heavier dystopian reads
kimbacaffeinate recently posted..Review: Shadowlands by Kate Brian