Jarheads series by Sean Michael

I fell in love with Sean Michael when I read the Velvet Glove stories, which I really should get around to reviewing soon. There have been other books by this author I've really enjoyed, like Bent, Caged, and Secrets, Skin, and Leather. Oh, and we must not forget the vampire story told in Need and Chosen. Those book are either very BDSM, or have enough BDSM elements in them that they worked for me. So I had expectations of the Jarheads series heading in that direction as well. But, it didn't. Just normal old gay sex. Sure, there is an Alpha guy and a nurturer guy and it wouldn't have taken much to get to a D/s relationship, but it's still pretty much just a vanilla relationship. Didn't matter so much though, I read all six books, so even without the sex stuff working for me, the story was good.

If you are tired of the HEA books where you just have to imagine the happily ever after, then this series is for you. The first book puts them together, the next five books deal with their happily ever after. And somewhere along the line they add a third and then the three of them get to live happily ever after. Yeah, three guys for years and years and years. And it works.

Since six books cover something like 15 years, there is obviously some skipping around. We get to see the the high and low points... birthdays, holidays, illnesses, death of parents, retiring from the marines, and various other crises. There are also some normal days thrown in here and there so we get to see how life in general works out for them, too. And there is a lot of sex. It's pretty much their answer to everything. If vanilla m/m and m/m/m sex does it for you, then you'll definitely enjoy the sex. There are a few kinky scenes after one of them goes exploring on the internet and wants to try some stuff he saw, but not enough to call these books anywhere close to BDSM. And while there are elements of D/s (the big guy gets a bj every morning, and the smaller one does almost all of the cleaning), it's not really a D/s relationship, either.

Which means the sex didn't do much for me. But that's not the fault of the author. It's just not my thing.

The story is a good one, though. It's a romance, even though the big guy in the story would argue with that for most of the first three or four books, by the last book even Rock might agree it qualifies as romance.

The characters are expertly brought to life. You feel as if you know them. These books made me laugh and cry, celebrate and grieve. And the series reminded me to just enjoy the easy times with my own soul mate, enjoy each other and not worry so much about the other details.

There were a lot of typos though, and that always bothers me. And many of them were things a spell check should have picked up on. Some typos are technically another word spelled correctly, but that wasn't the case with all of these.






1. Don't Ask, Don't Tell
2. Personal Leave
3. Three Day Passes
4. Tempering
5. Out of the Closet
6. On the Sand