{Review} Semper Fi (The Education Series #3) by Jane Harvey-Berrick (@JHarveyBerrick)

One life, one love 
Sempre e per sempre 

* * * * 

Ten years ago US Marine Sebastian Hunter was a teenager in love with a married woman—a woman who broke his heart. 

Kicking his heels in a desk job in Geneva, he’s given the chance to get back to the action. Life just might be worth living again … until he meets the woman who broke him 10 years earlier. 

Now she’s back, but he’ll do anything to keep her at arm’s length. Temptation doesn’t come much stronger, but he’d be a fool to fall for her again… 

Caroline Venzi is a successful journalist, preparing to head out to report from the front lines of the war in Afghanistan. Love is the last thing on her mind when she crosses paths with Marine Sebastian Hunter. 

Will this chance encounter reignite the erotic passion of their past? 

* * * * * 

This story is a re-telling of the best-selling contemporary romance 'The Education of Caroline', now told from US Marine Sebastian Hunter’s point of view. 

Profits of this book support the military charities Felix Fund (UK) and EOD Warrior Foundation (USA) 

​US Marine Warrant Officer Sebastian Hunter has spent the last ten years trying to exorcise Caroline from his heart.  He’s signed up for every dangerous mission that he possibly could and has seduced more than his fair share of women along the way.
 
There is nothing left of the sweet and gentle boy that he once was.  Now only anger and rebellion drive him forward day after endless day. Until he sees her once again.
 
Caroline now goes by the name of Lee Venzi.  After losing Sebastian, she fled her previous life and unhappy marriage. When letters sent to the boy she loved go unanswered, she fought hard to move forward and to reinvent herself as a foreign news correspondent.  
 
Standing in front of Sebastian again is both her dearest dream and her worst nightmare.  All she ever wanted was for him to live a happy life filled with all of the love that he deserved.  But instead, she finds a bitter man set on a path of self-destruction.  Can their love heal all of the wounds of the past or will it light the spark that finally destroys them both?

“Did you mean it, Caro? Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”

“Yes, tesoro,” she whispered.

Her admission stunned me, that and hearing the nickname that she’d had for me all those years ago … but was it all in the past tense?
​
“I loved you very much,” she continued, but then her back straightened, and some of the softness hardened again. “But you’re not the person I knew ten years ago. The Sebastian I knew was sweet and gentle and loving, but you … you can be like that, but your anger scares me. The hatred I saw in your face and heard in your words— that was hard for me. I can see that you think I let you down badly ten years ago, or when you were 21 … and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that, but I can’t fix it either— I can’t change the past.” 

​After the first two books in this series, I thought that I knew Sebastian Hunter – I was so wrong.  His love for Caroline shaped every aspect of his life and I never expected to feel such fury in him.  He broke my heart on almost every page.
 
But Jane Harvey-Berrick redeems him in her unforgettable fashion with an ending that is both poignant and completely satisfying.  She proves that love knows no boundaries, no age and no obstacles - and that makes this book an absolute must read…

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