Book excerpt: What does a to-the-core, orphaned Marine have in common with an introverted electronics expert with too much family? A dog, of course. Lainy Morrison, self-proclaimed nerd, helps Captain Mitch Monahan by taking his dog while he’s deployed. Through e-mails, family DVDs, and pictures, the pair get to know one another. They soon fall in love, but can love sustain a relationship formed an ocean apart and overcome old fears? Set in contemporary Hershey and Kuwait the Nerd and the Marine encompasses humor, poignancy, and the relationship between two people oceans apart.