Customer Reviews

Above and Beyond (Percussion Performance)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This was one of Sandra Brown's best! The story line was excellent and the characters of Trevor and Kyla became almost real to me. Trevor is the kind of man that every woman dreams about.

Trevor has in his possession all of Kyla's letters that she had written to her dead husband. He had been stationed with her husband and had been sent these letters along with his other belongings. While healing from very serious wounds in the hospital, her letters give him the will to live. He would read them over and over until he had them memorized word for word.

He falls in love with Kyla through these letters and how he arranges to meet Kyla after he is released from the hospital is one of the best story lines that I have ever read.

It is worth adding to your book collection.

Great storyline, great characters, sweet love scenes that don't get gross with graphics- a great read! It will be a keeper for me! Kyla's husband, Richard- a marine who is guarding the embassy- dies during a bombing, the day after the birth of their little boy. Trevor, also a marine, survives the bombing losing his left eye as well as his left side being crushed. He survives the extensive pain, surgeries, and rehab by reading and rereading letters that were in with his belongings returned to him. Sweet love letters written by Kyla to Richard. He decides he wants to meet the women of such love. When he finally gets out of rehab 1 1/2 years later he heads to where Kyla & son are now living with her parents. She's a "knock-out!" Love at first sight for Trevor- so he starts finding ways to meet Kyla and get to know her better, become a part of her life and introduce her to the man he has become. He can't just go up to her and introduce himself to her because he was known as "Smooch"- if that tells you anything. Richard had shared "Smooch's" adventures with Kyla & she detested him. But life has given Trevor a 2nd chance. And he wants to prove that to Kyla before she finds out the truth of who he was.

A great love story! Trevor is a doll and Kyla is a sweetie that has to finally give up her husbands ghost to love another. It is easy for us to say "Kyla get real and go after Trevor!" But until Trevor she has been living for her son, convincing herself that there will never be another love for her. It is easy as a reader to say give it up but put yourself in her place. It's a keeper of a book!

the writing was a little choppy, but I found the characters both likeable and human. Kyla's loyalty to her late husband is frustrating because this is a romance novel and she's one of the obstacles to the HEA the hero and heroine are seeking, but her reluctance to move on is entirely understandable. Everyone grieves at her own pace and Trevor is incredibly understanding, despite how hard Kyla makes it for him.

At first, Trevor's obsession with Kyla was a little creepy, but, under the circumstances, believable and after Kyla finds out who he really is, Babs does put a positive spin on it and shows that he hasn't really done anything all that awful. I think it's more complicated than that, but this is one of Sandra Browns earlier books and she was restricted by the limits of a category romance.

It was interesting reading this reprint nearly twenty years later and seeing the way the military and the Middle East were presented in popular fiction after the Marine barracks bombing. It wasn't the thrust of the book, but for me it was enticing.

The only thing I didn't like about this book was that Trevor's injuries were never an issue. Yes, superficially they sort of affected the plot. There were a couple instances where people stared and he was a little self-conscious with Kyla about the damage to his leg. But Brown presents him as just so sexy that it's not really an obstacle for him. I think I would have liked him more if he had not been a ladies man suddenly changed by this terrible tragedy into a one-woman man but who still has all the charm and charisma and sex appeal that make him the town's most eligible bachelor. I think of all our servicemen who weren't incredible ladies' men before terrible injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan and find their story to be missing here.

In a senseless act of terrorism, Kyla loses her husband Richard the night their son is born. Distraught, she vows to honor his memory and remain in mourning.

Trevor is devastated when he discovers that the only reason that he survived the bombing is because he passed out in his best friend's bunk. While recuperating in the hospital, his personal effects are delivered, including heart-wrenching love letters that Kyla wrote to Richard while he was stationed in Egypt. With each letter, he finds himself more and more attracted to Kyla and the life that Richard was not able to return to.

Now disfigured (and wearing an eye patch as a badge of honor), former womanizer Trevor returns to the US and rather than work at his father's law firm, decides to become a building contractor, seeking out the widow he has fallen in love with. After watching from afar, he finally introduces himself, and slowly chips away at Kyla's armor. Through the letters, Trevor knows just how to get to her.

Brown does a good job with the material, but I would have like to have seen more of his recovery, particularly since his personality took a 180, as well as reactions of others to his supposedly disfiguring injuries which never seemed to bring negative attention to him. After finishing the story, it just did not seem complete to me.

This is a reprint of a story from a former era when it was not only apparently acceptible, but actually romantic for a man to become obsessed with a woman he doesn't know, repeatedly watch her from a distance without her knowledge, and then lie to her about knowing who she is when circumstance causes them to meet (he's watching her again when she is finally made aware of his presence). I found this to be far more creepy than romantic. It's interesting that this title was determined worthy of reprint at this time. It's worth reading only by someone interested in the idea that this could have been considered the beginning of a healthy relationship a generation ago.

Sure, the story sounds like the replica of Message in a bottle written by Nicholas Sparks. However, Ms. Brown who remains as one of the masters in romance genre ,who has the foresight to concoct an original and refreshing plot before Sparks.

The emotional intensity in the romance drama is palpitating and Kyla Shroud as the widow who misses dearly her husband is sympathetic yet resilient. Trevors is most scorching as a hero, for beyond his looks lies a tender heart for her.

The moral dilemma is well-handled; he has to decide for himself whether to treat Kyla with honesty about his identification, but when love swarms to overwhelm him, he takes care of Kyla and her baby. It is altogether an uplifting tale that soars with the emotional intensity.

Kyla's behavior through out this whole book came across as irrational. When she wasnt talking to herself about how much she still loved her dead hubby, she was actting selfish and just plain self absorbed. When she finds out about Trav's lies, she then turns into giantic, rightous bitch.

This book would've been half way decent if the heroine could've been more lovable or more reasonable.. her love for her dead hubby came across as unbeliveable.. if she did love him al ALL at any point in her life.

Get ready to spend your afternoon annoyed to all hell, if you do decide to try this book. Not one of her better books, at all...

Like most people who has read this book, I, too, liked it a lot. The characters altho not thrilling were however very likeable. Loved the plot!

Above and beyond was just that..... Above and beyond.It held my intrest and my desire to keep turning the pages.Brown never lets me down...It was a very good read.I enjoyed the book.

This book had a great storyline. Guy falls in love with girl through letters to her husband, who is guy's best friend. Of course he feels like it's his fault his best friend died. The letters get him through two years of recovery then he goes to make girl fall in love with him. It was a really sweet story. They only thing I didn't like is how Kyla kept saying to herself that she promised her husband that she would be faithful to him until she died. If she honestly asked herself if her husband would want that for her she would know the answer. I thought that was the only thing that went a little too far. Overall, worth reading.