Review: Welcome Home, Soldier by Deanna Wadsworth

Title: Welcome Home, Soldier

Author: Deanna Wadsworth

Length: 76 Pages

Category: Contemporary, Holiday

At a Glance: Welcome Home, Soldier is a sweet reunion story that many will find redemptive and romantic and a nice way to spend a few holiday hours.

Reviewed By: Sammy

Blurb: Clay and Daniel fell in love as enlisted men during Desert Shield, but Don’t Ask Don’t Tell meant they had to keep it secret. After Clay’s convoy was ambushed, PTSD changed him, and their relationship ended in a horrible fight on Christmas Eve.

Twenty-five years later, they’ve reconnected on Facebook, and Clay finds out Daniel will be alone on Christmas Eve. Impulsively, he sets out for Daniel’s hometown of Gilead, Ohio—where Daniel is now the mayor—to surprise him with a visit. But a blizzard strikes and Clay wrecks his car. All hope of seeing Daniel is lost—until a mysterious old man named Nick offers Clay a ride.

The weight of past wounds and the scars of war might make their reunion awkward, but Clay is willing to take the risk to win back his lost love. Despite a lifetime of disappointing holidays, Clay hopes that this soldier is finally coming home for Christmas.

A story from the Dreamspinner Press 2017 Advent Calendar “Stocking Stuffers.”

Review: Clay stormed out of Danny’s life many years ago, when he realized that the soldier he loved was never going to come out of the closet despite the fact that he claimed he was in love. To add insult to injury, Danny had reenlisted, and Clay just couldn’t handle another second on active duty, not after a roadside explosion left him behind as the only surviving member of his team.

After years of chasing his pain from a bottle, and cursing the fact that he had given up the only man he’d ever really loved, Clay got in contact with Danny again, discovering he had indeed returned to the idyllic small town he often told Clay about. Determined to see Danny again, Clay sets off on an unannounced visit that ends with him running off a road and nearly freezing to death in a sudden blizzard. Rescued by a delivery man in a semi, Clay makes it to Danny’s door, and after the initial surprise, Danny invites him in. Clay steps back in time, discovering all over again just how deeply he felt for his old lover, but Danny has moved on—has a son and an ex-wife. Can two soldiers find the love they once had, and this time let it shine in the light of day without fear of what others may think?

There was a bit of whimsy to Deanna Wadsworth’s holiday story, Welcome Home, Soldier, that kept it from being a rather heavy subject matter. Given that Clay was a recovering addict, and his desire to meet up with Danny was almost a last-ditch effort to reclaim the love he still harbored for the man, this novella could have turned out very differently. The idea that these two men could so easily return to the former passion they felt for each other did feel a bit forced to me. I felt that their shared history helped that story arc, but still, so many years had passed, and Danny had most definitely moved on given that he married and had a child. But theirs was a resilient kind of love, and, in the end, that is what mattered most.

I also both liked and was alternately frustrated by how the author skirted around the idea that Clay disbelieved Danny’s bisexuality. There was a recurring reminder that Clay couldn’t understand how Danny could be attracted to both sexes and how, in the beginning, he felt Danny used it as a way to avoid coming out of the closet. I liked this exploration at first, as I felt it exposed all the wrong thinking many have regarding bisexuality; however, as it was brought up years later when they meet for the second time, I began to wonder if the character still disbelieved his lover, and that made me feel a bit uneasy. In the end, I do think the author’s intent was to expose it for the false assumption that it is, and I applaud her for that.

Welcome Home, Soldier is a sweet reunion story that many will find redemptive and romantic and a nice way to spend a few holiday hours.

You can buy Welcome Home, Soldier here:
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