He does not just fill my body, my womanhood. He fills me. My heart, my soul. He fills the horrible emptiness that has gaped inside me all my life. The moment that he slide into me, I knew. It has just taken me this long to understand the strange feeling flowing in my veins in place of blood: happiness.

Redonk Nutshell: Iraqi woman and American soldier find solace through each other

I picked this book up after author Megan Ericksen raved about it on my feed timeline. I was very curious about it.

What do you get when you take two survivors from opposite sides of war, who are suffering from varied degrees of PTSD and throw them in a small room? You get Wounded. Or rather in this case you do. Rania is a woman who has been forced to make it on her own in a war torn Iraq, able to only make ends meet by selling her body in order to have food and shelter. Hunter is a marine doing a tour through Iraq when he is hit and injured by insurgents. He witnesses his friend get blown to bits by a grenade. When Rania comes across this scene, something in her breaks. Instead of running or turning away, she drags the unknown marine into her makeshift home and nurses him back to health.

Over the next few days and weeks, the two of them manage to communicate through garbled Arabic and English, and though they don’t always understand each other through words, their mutual suffering and compassion is enough to speak for itself. A deep bond is formed,and when the situation truly heats up in Rania’s neighborhood, Hunter must make a decision on how he can best protect the both of them (though he knows his presence is more than likely going to get them both killed).

This is a crazy intense book. It’s graphic. It’s gory. It’s violent. And, well, it felt real. There is romance, here, but it’s gritty and ugly. Well, I say ugly, but really what it comes down to is finding beauty in an ugly place. I really enjoyed this story, though I would imagine it may put some people off with its subject matter of war, prostitution and violence.

This is a steal on the Kindle for only $3.99! I look forward to reading by Ms. Wilder.

Wounded by Jasinda Wilder

Rating: A

Romance: 4/5       Raunch: 4/5