Stand Down

Wow. I loved this book. It's got everything the first three books had in terms of action and intense storytelling, plus one of the most beautiful relationship developments I've read in a long time. Echo Company gets a new sergeant, one a lot tougher than my beloved Sergeant Hanson, and it's not an easy transition because Hanson is still there and marginalized for being black (the new guy, slangily referred to as Top, actually calls him a "colored boy" and it's infuriating. I don't really care th [...]

Before I get into anything about this book, I want to reassure anyone who has read The Road Home but not any of the previous books that this review is entirely safe. Or at least it's safe in terms of spoilers - how could it not be? - but I am going to talk about how some of the things I found in it enhanced my already great appreciation for The Road Home.If you haven't read any of the books, you're still fine UNLESS all you care about is which of the characters make it to the last book (which wo [...]

Switching back to Michael's perspective, Stand Down is the final installment in Emerson's fantastic series, Echo Company. He's still a little shocked from finding the feisty Lieutenant wandering wounded in the middle of the jungle - after all he was on point and could have shot her. But when word comes that Echo Company will be on stand down (a type of break where the guys are sent to a noncombat zone), he's hoping for a chance to meet up with Rebecca and find out not only how she's doing but to [...]

This series is phenomenal. Why did it ever go out of print? The fourth installment was every bit as good as the first three, and I grew more enamored of Rebecca. I didn't think that was even possible. And the guys, oh, how I love the guys. I had to get the fifth book again to re-read, now that I know them all better.There's more grim detail here about the everyday business of war in the jungle. And it's so realistic that there are times I could actually smell it. The guys, doing their heartbreak [...]

Michael and the other members of Echo Company can’t stop talking about her. Rebecca. The nurse with the witty sarcasm who they pulled out of the bush. The one who should never have been out there in the first place. Much less alone. With a bullet in her arm and claiming it was shrapnel.When you walk point five minutes, or three seconds, or a hands breath from tripping a land mine, that’s the kind of memory that can get you killed.Michael knows.But what he doesn’t know, for certain, is what [...]

This NEEDS to be back in print. It's historically important and it is still relevant. It is too well-written and valuable a series to have ever gone out of print to begin with.

Of all the books in the series, this one got to me the most. Mostly because it's HAPPY. And I knew what was coming next, after the book ended. Seeing Mike all eager and puppylike, all bounce, pursuing Rebecca, mirroring Rebecca's very tentative overtures in The Road Home, when they both needed to regain bounce, broke my heart. It brings her actions and their relationship in TRH into new dimensions. Absolutely fantastic. The Road Home does stand alone, but it means so much more as part of the ser [...]

Mike's company goes on stand down, giving him a chance to pursue Rebecca.

Yes, this is a well-researched sequel and feels very much like a time capsule. I am going to admit it: I am here for Rebecca and Michael. Can you form a connection with someone over a single conversation? When are you having the worst day of your life? When were you just shot? Will they write one another and figure out what the reader already know which is that they need to be a couple. And will they ever physically see one another? In between these questions, Michael is a jerk to a new guy to d [...]

A good additionStand Down is the 4th book in the Echo Company series. The series is entertaining and this book continued the same story. I have been reading them using the lending library book each month and it has been hard to wait for the next month to be able to check out the next book.