Who's In It: Petty Officer Green and her husband, Petty Officer Mills and his phallus, Petty Officer Whitehead and her fiance, and Seaman Johnson and well, the naval ship.
The Basics: Nobody ever learns anything about the navy other than they are out in the water protecting America and it's interest or whats shown on NCIS. Enter What Happens Overseas Stays Overseas. In a military world where the officers jobs are to serve and protect American denizen, it seems that their side job is to fulfill their intimate desires. And their options are pretty much limited to other officers for six whole months. Sounds so disrespectful and may even scare the soul mates of whomever may read this with loved ones out to sea, but this novel assures you that, What Happens Overseas Stays Overseas.
What's The Deal: I'll confess first to being an easy mark for anything related to the military as I was a Naval ROTC member in high school. I begged for entrance into the military at 18, despite my criminal record. I was all the way in. I even liked Saving Private Ryan. ;) But What Happens Overseas Stays Overseas surprisingly, pissed me off, mostly because I learned that not only did I miss six-months out to sea and sex with foreign strangers, but I may have had a whole romantic life on board a USS naval ship, which did not mix with the one on land. But here it is, the coolest, uniquely plotted novel that I've read in a long time, that put me right into the navy.
"Starring Navy Privates" Actually Means: The novel consists of straight forward and un-coy naval privates. No pun intended.The story opens with Petty Officer Green being very sexually frustrated with her man, who can't even give it too her good--or long lasting--before she heads out to sea for six months. That allowed her to easily focus on her sexual frustrations on board. Petty Officer Whitehead is recently engaged, and the novel watches her grow into womanhood and the military life. She invites empathy, and doesn't allow her sullen past to truly dictate her decisions onboard. Not to discount Author Burton's awesomeness with character develop, but this character was developed best. Nothing else needs to be said about Petty Officer Mills other than he needs a leash with a military dog tag on it.
Who Is A Gregg Burton? He's the new author on the block and has written a novel that has been marked as urban, but not set in an urban or suburban setting. He has forced me to question the definition of urban fiction. Anyway, he keeps himself and his brand reaching newer heights with his constant appearances at book fairs and signings spanning the entire United States. I have had three author sightings myself.
Subtle Human Errors: If anything threatens to turn What Happens Overseas Stays Overseas upside-down, it's the missing scenes. Some areas I was looking for more development and some areas seemed rushed. I got them, but they were just incomplete. It's balanced by sex that spans several pages, and sometimes lasted too long. But if that's your thing, What Happens Overseas Stays Overseas is for you. There are not any other areas that super-readers will spot immediately. The rest of them you won't notice or care. Overall a good read and I'd like to see what happens when these characters get back into their land lives.
Signed and delivered by Rahiem Brooks, author of Laugh Now.
