I'll Get You Home: Part 2: Battle Scars

by Patricia Spencer

A scandalous combat photographer.
An irreproachable TV Producer.
Three days under siege.

By Goldie Award winning author Patricia Spencer.

Pulitzer Prize-winning combat photographer Brenna Rease has spent two and a half years embedded in a war zone. She has witnessed enough atrocity to push her to the brink of madness and she knows she has to get out before it kills her. But when she's offered the documentary she has always wanted to shoot, she can’t resist one last assignment.

TV Producer Grace Alcott finds Brenna’s personal reputation repugnant, knows she will be a management nightmare, and wants nothing to do with her. But with her job on the line, she is forced to hire her anyway.

Before they know it, the two of them are on a Herc C-130, flying into the heart of a besieged Balkan city just as a major military offensive is launched.

For three hellish days in 1994, convinced that escaping alive is impossible, they never consider what it will take to survive once they get back home to Washington, D.C.

The first third of this novel is set in a war zone. It contains intense material.

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IMPORTANT NOTE

THE BOOKS IN THIS TRILOGY ARE NOT STAND-ALONE READS!

Due to its length, this novel has been split into three sequential parts, which must be read in
-I’ll Get You Part 1 – Combat Zone – Starts at the beginning of the story and ends with a cliff-hanger;
- I’ll Get You Part 2 – Battle Scars – Starts with a change in location from where Part 1 left off, and ends with a cliff-hanger; and
- I’ll Get You Part 3 – Redemption – Starts with a change in location from where Part 2 left off, and concludes the novel.

All three parts of this book have already been published.

204 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 30, 2025

Reviews

[Diane (IF U'RE PRIVATE, PLEASE SKIP ME!!!) Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Empathic read!
Compassionate, both heartfelt & heartwarming at times, engaging, evenly balance writing and let's not dismiss the pacing of Part 2 of 'I'll Get You Home' ongoing storyline.
A highly recommended book and series!

[Della B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Guilt has a way of making you learn to be better or it can destroy you slowly.

Grace and Brenna return from the war ravaged city of Kavşak with very different memories. While they are both injured, Brenna’s trauma and physical damage is of major concern.

Spencer writes about trauma with a virtuoso’s hand. You are immersed in Brenna’s conversations and actions yet you do not get bogged down. After the action packed first book, Battle Scars allows you to catch your breath but just a moment.

I cannot wait to read book three in this series.

I received an advance review copy from the author and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

[Pat · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first: this is a gripping, intense, riveting, well written and absolutely brilliant book which I really loved and couldn't put down! This is Book 2 in a trilogy and cannot be read as a standalone. Both main characters are complicated women who have suffering and grief in their pasts. Now, they have spent time together in a combat zone and have come home broken physically and emotionally. It is time to heal. But, though their bodies may be healing, they will never be the same. And emotional scars remain and surface over and over and tear at the bonds they have formed with each other.

This part of the trilogy takes place in Washington DC. It centers on psychic wounds and includes discussion of suicide.

Grace has suffered a head wound and has no memory of how she got to a hospital in Germany. The events have so traumatized Brenna, she cannot tell the story to Grace. Trauma and secrets are a lethal combination to a fledgling relationship. Brenna is in more physical and psychic pain than Grace. But remembering how Brenna cared for her in Kovsak, Grace is determined to help Brenna heal. But will the surfacing trauma heal them or sink them?

Once again, I was struck by how the author allowed the characters to be fully seen, in all their complexity and with all their contradictions. And yet, that simply made them more real to me. The story carried me along on an emotional journey that I never imagined being witness to. And their pain became my own, so powerful was the writing.

This book helped me distill what is truly important in my life from what I might not want to lose, but which, if lost, would not alter who I am at my core. It is very powerful writing that can do that while not being obvious about it; while simply telling a very compelling story.

I found myself again highlighting passages such as this one: "There it is… The interior door. The one that led down a passageway to other rooms: self-esteem, self-image, self-worth. For some people, another door also existed down that corridor: Secrets. Out of sight, tightly locked, it was where Awful Truths resided. The guilty used the room to hide their misdeeds. But for the innocents, it was the place for self-recrimination, where they transformed bad luck, tragedy, and helplessness into guilt. Guilt, terrible as it was, served as the remedy for powerlessness. It gave the illusion of control where none had actually existed." I found the author's depth of understanding and empathy remarkable.

As with Part 1, do not expect a simple ending. The story is not over. Part 3 is coming. This is definitely a story worth reading. I highly recommend this book!

Thanks to the author for the gifted copy. All opinions are my own.

[Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This continues from the first book. Brenna and Grace have made it back home to America. Brenna is struggling with her physical and mental scars. She is also holding a dark secret from Grace.  

Grace just wants to be with Brenna and take care of her. Its a detailed exploration of PTSD of dark thoughts, of spiraling mental health. Family members get involved a lot more in this book which helped add to the narrative. 

Overall its tough, mature, emotional writing. Again a cliff hanger ending...book 3 it is then. Invested too much now ..this better be a HEA!

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was first published in 2011 as a heterosexual romance and has now been significantly revised into a sapphic romance. I received a free ARC of I'll Get You Home from the author and I leave a review voluntarily.

Grace was injured in Kavşak and sent home after being rescued by her love Brenna. Brenna tries to go back and save the children they found together but is stepping into a land mine and is badly injured and sent home. The so good Grace is trying to heal Brenna back to life and the physical scars is one thing but Brenna has such emotional scars and guilt to deal with. They connect in one way but so much more to work on and when Brenna tells Grace how she was saved they split since they both blame themselves about what happened.

I was deeply moved also about this part of the book and quickly continued to the final part.

[Fran Sappharc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had a gap between reading book 1 and 2, I cannot believe how quickly I was intensely gripped! This book has not the brutality of war, unlike the first, but it has a clear image of the brutality of the aftermath..... or as much a clear picture as I imagine, or want to imagine!
This book is so much about love.... the love of a brother and a father were particularly moving to me..... but love in the romance also leapt off the page.
As with book 1, this ends on a cliffhanger…. But with writing of this calibre why wouldn’t you want to read the next book….. I need to see this play out. I was engrossed, not because of wondering what would happen but rather because of what the author was laying before me on the page. Gripping.

[Michelle Schuler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part 2

Part 2 of I'll Get You Home by Patricia Spencer begins with one MC coming home.
I love the connection between the MCs forage and how the relationship grows despite secrets that need to be released.
I like how the author broke this up in three parts. It has a good emphasis on what is happening at each time. We had the war in the first part, healing part of the second.
I look forward to the next release at the end of May. I will keep my eye on this author for future books.

[TasmanianQueen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as an arc and this is my voluntary review of Part 2.

This part of the book is no less captivating than the first. Although both women have made it home from their time in a warzone having been injured, the war is far from over. They are now dealing with the war raging within themselves. Brenna is fighting to maintain mental control while Grace is trying to get her career back on track and save Brenna from her own demons.
I am absolutely drawn to this story and cannot wait to read Part 3 to find out if these strong, courageous women can survive together amidst the evil of the world that is casting shadows on their sanity and peace.

[Debbie Fahlman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again Patricia Spencer authors a book to keep you turning the pages.

A lot has happened after book one & now Brenna and Grace are back stateside, but still suffering, in many ways, by what they experienced those 3 days.

Brenna is suffering having spent months in the war zone prior to the last trip with Grace. She could be perceived as cold, hardened, having no emotions and possibly even suicidal after everything she’s seen and experienced, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

In this second book, we find out more about Brenna’s background that has made her this way. She is angry, riddled with guilt, heartbroken, and doesn’t trust anyone. She is struggling right now, for reasons I won’t divulge as it’s a major part of the plot.

Grace too is recovering from what happened to her and the ravaging she witnessed in the war zone. However, she has loving, supportive parents, and had a loving relationship prior to being in the war zone. Grace just can’t understand why Brenna hasn’t contacted her and where she was, she thought they had a connection.

While Brenna battles her demons and Grace is reliving the three days spent in the war zone as she pieces together the pictures, movies and tries to write the narrative for the documentary. A documentary that that has Grace reliving those three days in the war zone.

Both have so many emotions and yet have no way to release them. It highlights the emotions and nightmares of the soldiers returning from the war trying to function in a world where sleep is restless, and alcohol flows freely as they struggle with PTSD brought on by war.

I’m looking forward to the to the third and last book in this trilogy.

I received an ARC from the author.

[Monna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hopefully you have read Part 1 of this trilogy. This book, Part 2, won’t make nearly as much as sense without Part 1. You won’t have seen the violence, the pain, the love, honor, strength, and resolve that our two main characters, Brenna and Grace have just experienced. In three days, mind you. Three bloody days. Part 1 ends with Brenna triggering a land mine. Part 2 begins  with Grace’s mother Margaret Alcott receiving a phone call telling her that her daughter has been injured and is in a hospital in Italy. Margaret may not be one of the main characters but she’s integral to the rest of this book.


Margaret and Alden Alcott find their daughter unconscious, filthy, face swollen, concussed, but alive. They are almost experiencing every parent’s ultimate nightmare. Grace is physically damaged but alive. But where’s Brenna? Grace is a TV producer, a “suit”, to Brenna’s gritty, infamous photographer extraordinaire. Both of them braved Kavsak, a fictional Sarajevo-type environment. You really need to read Part 1 to understand. Both MCs have tragic backstories as well as heart wrenching experiences. They have bonded in the most powerful way. Grace manages to track Brenna down to a hospital in Washington, DC. Luckily, Grace lives in DC, so she heads to Brenna. But what does she find?

The rest of Part 2 is a road to absolution and recovery. Grace and Brenna must learn to trust again, each other and everyone and everything around them. It’s a very personal journey. Read the book. Feel the book.

[Henriette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Spencer, I‘ll Get You Home (part 2: Battle Scars)
Heartwrenching and realistic: the struggle of the homecoming warriors
The second part of this intense and deeply moving trilogy is as excellent as the first part: „Combat Zone“ had has us for three days in a red-hot combat zone - relentless shelling, the atrocities of war, all in technicolor.
Now Grace and Brenna are back in the US and we witness a different struggle - as intense as the combat of part 1. The physical scars, the mental assault of guilt and grey moral choices, grief, of pictures never to be unseen. When we read about what veterans - and combat photographers among them - endure when coming home their suffering is often described very clinical. This book engages the reader fully on an emotional level, we relive the agony of both, Grace and Brenna. They try to find each other again - but what terrible timing. Woven into all this is a deepening of both Grace‘s and Brenna‘s background. This involves us even more deeply in their lives.
I was glued to this book and couldn‘t put it down. Just one more chapter! I went through the emotional wringer with the main characters and suffered with them. What a insightful and beautifully written sequel. Highly recommended.

PS.: This is not a stand-alone but part 2 of a trilogy

I received an ARC. The review is left voluntarily.

[Rebecca Gaddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

heartbreaking transition

This book continues the story of Brenna & Grace with outstanding fidelity to the aftermath of trauma! It’s heartbreaking with moments of light, but grinds home the fine thread between “life” and the alternative. Exquisitely told!