A Sea of Stars

"Gina..." Mark hesitated. "Do you realize you're afraid to get married?" he asked gently. "Daniel would have been a good choice for you. I'm a good choice. When you find there are none of your must-not-haves and all of your must-haves, it's time to say yes. I love you. And I'm confident you'll love me well in return if you let yourself take the step. Say yes and marry me. Your doubts are real, but they won't survive first contact with reality."

- Page 323

"Marry me, Gina. You need me. I want you as my wife. There are worse reasons to get married."
"There are better." She bit her lip. "I don't love you, Mark."
"Yet," he qualified. "You don't love me yet."

- Page 339

"Gina, I want to be your husband. And getting married now could be a good buffer for you. You could say 'See my husband about that' when the questions start coming. I can tell the Navy to go through me on any concerns, that I have the authority to speak for you. You'll find life is a lot easier--maybe even happier--if you marry me before this goes any further."
He waited a moment and then smiled. "I'm going to make one last pitch, okay? My best one. Then I'll let this topic drop, I promise." He waited for her to glance up. "I know the package might not be ideal. I'm older, I've been married before. But the 'content', those characteristics you're looking for, are what you want. We share a deep faith in God, a strong work ethic, a sense of ambition, alongside a personal life that is quiet and, for the most part, peaceful. We have a willingness to be open with one each other--a verbal intimacy, if you will--a desire to listen and share what we're thinking and feeling."
....Blah blah you have a pretty smile
"I'm a good risk, Gina. Take a leap and make the decision that your future is with me. Trust me, trust the fact that I love you. I'm not asking you to have everything sorted out and not have any doubts. I don't need that from you. What I need, what I think you need, is a yes."

- Page 346-7

There are just so many problems with this book and, mainly, their relationship. Those quotes above should give a pretty giant indication of exactly what I mean. See, I'm all for the guy realizing that he loves the girl, that she is the one, before the girl comes to the realization that she loves the guy. I like this trope and, actually, it happens all the time. But this was horrible. Mark comes to the realization that he loves Gina months and months before they even start dating. In fact, she's dating someone else and he's all, "Crap. I should have asked her out when I had the chance." All fine and good. He's interested in pursuing a relationship. Lovely. And when exactly did he go from that to, essentially, tricking her into dating him when she's still dating Daniel, begging her not to get engaged till after he got back off-duty, and proposing marriage as more a best-case scenario "This would be useful" kind of deal?? He could see that his talk of marriage, and actually dating, was worrying her; upsetting her, and yet he wouldn't give it a rest until far far after he should have. If he actually loved her, he would shut up, back off, and let her come to her own decision, without his nagging and begging. Instead, it feels like he talks about him loving her and how great their life would be together that she just, all too conveniently, starts to believe it too? I don't even know. It was weird.
And, weirdly, besides the fact that Mark was waaay too insistent, he was "perfect". Like, no flaws. Gina didn't have any either. Neither did Daniel, for that matter. Him and Mark were totally chill about moving in on the others' girl, so long as they did it slow like. They had "man-code" or some shite, so may the best man win, we'll still be friends no matter who she picks, etc abounded. Except I have a brother and I know that's not really how it works. Maybe, MAYBE, one guy would feel like that, but definitely not both of them.
Thankfully, the Christian element was not heavy-handed. A few prayers here and there, but none of the preachy stuff.
As far as plot went, it was so boring, I could have probably watched "Arrow" on pause and been more interested. (Hey, if it was a screencap of Oliver and felicity standing next to each other, I KNOW I would have been more interested.) It started off pretty good and some of the submarine elements, Gina's work, and solar flares(STAAAAARGATE) were interesting, but it went NO WHERE. This was a nearly 500 page book with almost nothing happening. Even when I thought something exciting or dangerous might happen in the last 100 pages, there was still nothing. Bah.
The quality of Dee Henderson's books/writing appear to have gone drastically downhill since her O'Malley series. I'm not sure I want to even bother checking out any forthcoming works.
Really pathetic and not worth the read.