I was going through my lists of heroes that I wanted to spotlight this month and I came across Frisco’s name and had me a little fangirl squeal before I moved onto the rest of the names on my nifty little list. But as many times as I looked over my list, I kept coming back to Frisco.
Alan “Frisco” Francisco from Frisco’s Kid by Suzanne Brockmann.
Suzanne Brockmann is one of my all time favorite authors. She’s the goddess that has written my favorite series ever made, The Troubleshooters Series and she’s the genius that introduced me to Sam f*cking Starrett! I love that man, always have and I always will and as much as I love Sam, it’s Frisco that I want to write about today.
It’s Frisco that I want to spotlight this month because I’ve read a lot of romance novels and not very many romance novels have heroes quite like Frisco.
We have this SEAL who was injured while out on a mission and he’s out of commission for awhile. For a very long time. The injuries he sustained when he was on that mission that damn near blew his leg up permanently benched him from any kind of physical missions and while doctors thought he would never walk again, Frisco proved all of them wrong and was walking again even though he was walking with a limp and a cane.
Throughout the book, we followed Frisco as he learned to live a new life that was thrown on him, away from going on missions, away from his friends and away from everything he loved. We saw how devastated he was and how grumpy he turned when everyone around him “gave up” on him as he saw it.
He spent so much time in rehab trying to get better enough so that he could get back to the way he was before the accident so that he could back to fighting the bad guys. It really hurt for me to see this broken man at the beginning of the story, I mean we heard about him in the stories before his book but getting to know him in his own story was just so much ….more.
I loved Frisco and I loved his transformation. I loved seeing him with his niece, Natasha. Watching him learn how to take care for her, turn into the man she needed him to be and just the person he was at the end of his story made me so hot damn proud of him. To feel broken, not whole and all of that made his journey that much more fulfilling for me as a reader.
Take this scene for instance:
“Alan, you know, I don’t have anything better to do and I can–“
“Frisco,” he interrupted her. “Not Alan. And I’m cleaning it up, not you.”
“Do you mind if I call you Alan? I mean, after all, it is your name—”
“Yeah, I mind. It’s not my name. Frisco’s my name. Frisco is who I became when I joined the SEALs.” His voice got softer. “Alan is nobody.”
Alan is a nobody, he really thought that as long as people called him Frisco, he’d be somebody…it wasn’t okay to be Alan because while he was a SEAL, he was Frisco and he wasn’t ready to accept defeat and he hated himself and everything in the world because he couldn’t be out there fighting the bad guys with his team.
He was so fiercely strong and so fiercely determined to get better, to get back to 100% that you couldn’t help but love the man. As low as he thought of himself, the way that he put Natasha’s needs above his own and just the way that he was made me love him.
Scenes like this one made me want to gather him close and hold him, make him feel better.
He’d said the words tonight when he spoke to the cab dispatcher. I’m physically disabled. He wasn’t a SEAL anymore. He was a crippled man with a cane—crutches now—who might’ve let a kid die because of his damned pride.
How hard must it be to go from this strong SEAL, can move mountains on his shoulders while being shot at in the dead of night to not being able to carry his niece downstairs to take her to the hospital. How much would that chafe on a man so used to carrying so much more than 30 pounds around? A man who has been a SEAL for so long and has wanted nothing but to be a SEAL for so long, to have all of that stripped away from you because you can’t run as fast anymore, you can’t swim as fast anymore. To go from being a respected SEAL and having to learn that life was a whole lot more than how fast you can run or swim, to have to learn that life was what you made of it, took a lot of guts and this is why I love Suz’s heroes because they’ve got real problems and they’re not these cookie cutter perfect heroes that romance novel heroes are known to be, they’re regular guys with normal problems and they’re men that you could totally picture yourself talking to and crushing on in real life.
This is all why I love Alan “Frisco” Francisco. This and so much more. He had a gruff manner and he could be pretty scary sometimes but at his core, he was a good man who loved fiercely and wholeheartedly. He loved his SEAL brothers and felt like he let them down when he couldn’t get back to 100% as soon as he wanted to, he loved his niece so much that he picked his life out of the gutter and got better for her, he took her in and gave her the kind of life she deserved and he loved Mia. The way that he loved Mia made me wish I was her. Their love wasn’t an overnight kind of thing, it grew over the course of the book and the closer we got to the end and the way that we saw them come together makes me sigh all over and that is why I read romance novels, heroes like Frisco make me so hot damn glad that I read romance novels because that journey that a couple goes through to get to the end is exactly why I read these books.
That happy ending is why I keep reading romance novels, Frisco’s happy ending was just too cute for words and I cannot express how much I love this series and how much I love Frisco, you’re going to have to read his book to find out what I mean. He really is one of the best hereos out there. To overcome everything he’s overcome is no easy feat and I love, love love the hell out of him for everything!
I could quote more from the book but that would just give away the story and you have to read the book to truly appreciate Frisco. I promise you, you’ll love him so pick up Frisco’s Kid by Suzanne Brockmann and read all about why I chose Alan “Frisco” Francisco to be this month’s Hero of the Month!
Until next month…
YES YES YES!!!
Did I mention, YES?
There is the one scene near the end when he has to choose between sitting back and letting the others do what they do better than anyone, or participate out of pride and make it harder on everybody else. Man, what a horrible choice, no?
He’s a wonderful wonderful character.
OK, yet another train I need to get on. I’ve not read one Suzanne Brockmann book yet. Kid you not.
*faints*
KMont, you poor thing!
Okay, kidding aside: get thee to a bookstore and grab Tall, Dark and Dangerous: Prince Joe/Forever Blue or The Unsung Hero. I don’t think you’ll regret it.
That’s the scene I wanted to post but I felt that it would give so much away from his journey so I want everyone to read the story for themselves and fall in love with Frisco as much as I did.
GMTA AL! =)
And KMont,
You must read this series, they’re all pretty short books but they’re SO good…LOVE this series!
Oh yeah, love, love, love Frisco. Great story. I’m so happy when someone loves Brockmann’s books as much as I do.
I didn’t think much of the first couple of books in this series, but FK really got me. Great stuff! — willaful
Frisco’s book was perhaps my favorite of all the team 10 books. Loved it. He was just so… sooo… soooooo wonderful.
oh I have this in my TBR thanks to Nikki. I’m working my way through the first three books.
Kmont – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with Brockmann at all. Love her Troubleshooters seris. Personally I liked the first 2 a lot but after that they really took off for me.
Lori,
I know exactly what you mean because as much as I love the Troubleshooters series, it was Frisco’s book that made me sit up and think, wow…Team Sixteen isn’t the only sexy SEAL team around.
Stacy,
Oh, I totally love Suz Brockmann’s stories as much as you do…love love LOVE them!
Willaful,
Are you talking about Prince Joe and Forever Blue, or Cowboy’s book? I didn’t like Cowboy’s book either but I LOVED Cowboy!
Tracy,
I can’t wait to read your review on this because I seriously love this book and Frisco!
Ok, you convinced me to pull out this book and read! I have read some of hers of the other series (not sure of name, but they are the single titles, UNSUNG HERO, etc) And I cried reading that one! I shall be back when I do too!
I just read FK. It’s the only book by Suzanne Brockmann I’ve read. You’re all right, it’s a wonderful read.
It was so realistic and Frisco’s emotions so true to life that I actually cried during the first few chapters. It was really heartrending. Mia was a great heroine, so sweet and kind. Frisco’s problems were real, not ridiculous or manufactured for the sake of conflict.
Frisco’s growth toward accepting his limitations was necessary and realistic. My only complaint is at the end of the book where he wanted to be involved in the Op. Unlike the rest of the book, that didn’t ring true for me. No experienced covert operative would’ve believed that he could be involved in an Op while on crutches. Other than that, I thought it was amazing.
I have the first 5 or 6 Troubleshooter books in my TBR and am now really looking forward to reading them. Thanks for turning me on to another great author!