Kay's Bookshelf

I started reading this book after reading a few reviews of it, and, as all of them were positive, I ended up having high expectations form it. However now that I have finished it, I am not sure what to think. It’s not a bad book and it’s not badly written, the subject matter (“a love triangle that transcends time“) has lots of potential and at times I was so caught in what happened I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough, and yet I am not overly excited now that I finished it (but I agree that this may have something to do with the high expectations mentioned previously).

My major qualm would be that I didn’t actually care for the characters. Believe it or not my favorite one was the very antagonist, Erik Ruby (Joanna’s husband at the time the book begins). While I agree that he was too ambitious for everyone’s good and perhaps a touch too greedy too, there is a thing I really liked about him: he always keeps his promises (which is more than we can say about either of the star-crossed lovers that are the protagonists). As an interesting tidbit about him, the author has mentioned in an interview that “In early drafts Erik was an out and out criminal, a blackmailer, whose secret files rivaled those of J. Edgar Hoover“, but then he changed him to make the fact that Joanna has remained with him all those years believable, as she was too intelligent to be with such a guy for too long. Thing is, I for one would have very much preferred that first version, because that way Joanna’s deceit towards him would have been a bit more understandable for me. As things stand, I ended up liking Erik the most of all, which probably made me biased towards the rest of the cast.

Brian, the character most followed by “the camera”, is an overall good guy and I mostly liked him (especially somewhere near the end). I was amused to notice his similarities to the author (they share the same initials, they’re both authors, they both enjoy playing guitar, they both have an artistic side — Mr. Walker being a graphic designer, making books look good, and Brian being a video editor, making videos look good). Thing is, there wasn’t much of Brian in the book other than what related to his love for Joanna (his past was mentioned once or twice, but without shedding much light on his character, other than the fact that he was a really nice guy, but we already knew that) so for me he was mostly monodimensional (yes, I do think I have just created this word). Overall I actually find it fascinating how, while I’m usually head over heels with the good guys in books, I wasn’t that excited about this one.

As for Joanna, I’m sad to say I didn’t manage to connect with her at all. She is supposed to be this wonderful woman that makes every man around fall head over heels with her. To me she seemed a bit superficial and immature, not to mention more than a bit selfish. I know that I may be biased when I think of her by a pet peeve of mine (I don’t like people who cheat on others and I don’t like people who lie about important things, and she does these both to Erik), but I can’t really help it as my personality, including pet peeves, do influence the way I relate to things around me, including books. I do have one think I have really appreciated about Joanna though, and that is the fact that she was a talented artists and the way she viewed her art, as an expression of self.

You know, had I been the editor of the book, I would have requested at least one scene to be added, one where Joanna goes to Erik and confesses everything and tells him she wants out of the relationship. And then he does something (either begs or blackmails her) forcing her to reconsider. The presence of this one scene would have changed a lot of my feelings towards the book, because Joanna would have at least tried to do the right thing instead of jumping head-on into the wrong one, and then I could have, perhaps, esteemed her.

On the other hand (because there always is another side to the story), this book reminded me in a way of a biography of Prince Charles I have read many years ago. Prince Charles who, while married to Lady Di, tried for a while but couldn’t suppress his feelings for Camilla then Parker-Bowles. Sure, the story was a lot more complicated than that, as all sorts of things were at stake, but the thing that touched me the most was the way their love has endured for many years, despite both of them being married to someone else, and the very intensity of this love had some redeeming qualities in my eyes (and yes, I was thrilled when the two actually managed to get married to one another a few years ago). From this point of view I sort of regard Brian and Joanna’s love story a bit better than I would have otherwise. As both of them state, not only they are soul mates and understand each other to a T, but they have never stopped thinking about one another even in the fifteen years they spent apart. And yet I still have trouble accepting the deceitful side of the story. Why oh why hasn’t the author added that scene I mentioned :( :(

To end on a positive note, I think the cover is great. While it seemed a bit cryptic to me before reading the book, I can’t help loving it after. It depicts a Buddha (Joanna is a Buddhist), a single white rose (Joanna and Brian’s special flower) and a note whose first words are “Dear Brian”, a note that I like to think of as the “note from an old acquaintance” in the title, despite that note being actually an email :)

What I liked most: The way Brian described his being an author:

“I suppose I’ve always had a talent for words, ever since I was a little kid. And I’ve always loved telling stories, creating worlds that never existed. Yet they existed for me. I’d spend hours scribbling all sorts of fantasies, seeing them unfold in my mind like movies.”

The way Joanna always talks about her art too.
Plus I was mildly amused to notice that Erik Ruby’s email address was RedJewel@hotmail.com :)

What I liked least: For some reason I couldn’t stand one of Joanna’s pet names for Brian, “my sweet writer”. Every time she mentioned it I couldn’t help thinking “blech” (without a clear idea why, it’s just how I felt).

Recommend it to? I do realize that a lot of this review was subjective and had to do with that pet peeve of mine. Because of that and because of the fact that the book has gotten many good reviews I do encourage everyone to at least give it a try. Everyone not sharing my pet peeve that is :)

See also
Bill Walker’s official site

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Popularity: 9% [?]

The book started out a bit too romance-y for my taste, making me worry a bit about it being just another bodice ripper. And yet very soon the characters started to develop and to show me their facets, and I fell in love with them all. Ariane, the woman with quiet eyes, has all the qualities necessary to the good leader she tries to be, trying to follow in her mother’s footsteps yet struggling to live up to the expectations of her title. Renard (whose name means “fox” in French) is the typical romance male (he has a title, he’s a skilled warrior but he’s never afraid to show his gentle side, he’s physically attractive and oh so predictably well endowed), and yet he didn’t read like a cliche, on the contrary, both he and Ariane manage to come to life from the page. Everything turned out to be a far cry from what I worried that the book would be after the first chapter, and I was happy about it, of course. :)

A lot of pages are dedicated to Ariane’s two sisters, Gabrielle and Miribelle, setting the scene for the next two books (each featuring one of them as a main character). They are both well developed characters, and I loved reading about them and their “adventures” of their own. So far my favorite of the two is Gabby, the impetuous one who used to be an incredible painter until she lost her magic in the arms of a man. She tries to harden her heart as her main ambition now is to become a courtesan (the book about her is named “The Courtesan” too), but underneath it all she is still a kind, brave girl, wanting to be loved. Miribelle is as yet a child, elf-like and a protector of all living creatures, understanding their language and taking care of any wounded creature she comes across. She also has premonitory dreams, and on the whole, although I did like Gabrielle more, it’s Miri that I am most curious about, how she will turn out to be when she grows up and how her own love story will develop. Especially as we already get to know her (possible) future beloved in this book, and at the end they part on less than friendly terms, to say the least.

What I liked most: The way the book deals with historical truth. Sure, this is a fantasy and as such there are some liberties taken (especially when it comes to Catherine de Medici, the title character). However I very much liked the fact that all the important moments in the story, history-wise, have actually happened. For example, Catherine’s Escadron Volant has actually existed, and so did the suspicions over Jeanne d’Albret’s death as being due to a pair of gloves poisoned by Catherine. Not to mention, of course, the night of St. Bartholomew’s Eve. The author has taken the known events of the time and has imagined some motivations for them, fantastic ones, with magic involved, but she did this as smoothly as possible, and I loved that.

Also, Miri’s pony is named Butternut :)

What I liked least: A minor qualm only: one of the abilities of a witch is reading someone else’s thoughts in their eyes. While a plausible enough idea (eyes being the mirror of the soul and so on), at times the technique was used for finding out specific dates and names, which was for me a bit harder to believe. A very minor thing, I know, especially as an author’s universe is her own and anything she says can be done simply can.

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys a good Historical Fiction/Romance book. It’s a light and entertaining read :)

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Popularity: 8% [?]

I added this book to my list of planned-to-be-read books more than a year ago, since first hearing about it, because the topic seemed new to me and full of potential. A husband that was so in love with his wife that he wrote her letters for the future, so that a small part of him could be around her then. For some reason I expected each letter to be long, I expected him to explore previously unseen sides of him each time, in order to… I don’t know, make him harder and harder to miss, make the love they had seem even more precious. But. It is only now, after reading the book, that I realize this couldn’t have been. First of all, because there are no “previously unseen sides” in a couple like that. Also, had the letters been like I hoped they were, long and full of promise, it would have done a world of harm to Holly, as she had enough trouble coping as it was and she didn’t need any extra reminders of what could have been and now could never be. I very much admire the author for the way she chose the letters from Gerry to be (although I, as a reader, always wanted more, more, more :) ).

Another thing that I have liked was the way the author has written the relationships between characters: they seem real, and I felt for Holly’s pain of her loss all throughout the book. There’s more to the book, relation-wise, than this, as Holly is anything but an island: she has four siblings, a mother and father, friends, work colleagues, casual acquaintances and so on. I watched her struggle with the said relationships, trouble to form them, trouble to keep them when worse came to worse, and I was glad to find them fairly well written (at least for a chick lit book, of course).

There are plenty of characters in the book, and, while none of them are perfect, all of them were likable with one notable exception. Unfortunately, I really couldn’t like Holly herself (all the more reasons why I thought the author has done a great job with portraying her emotions, making me care for them and their effect on Holly although I didn’t like her). Holly celebrates her thirtieth birthday somewhere at the beginning of the book, and yet she acts mostly like a teenager (including a most annoying habit to call things “stupid” at times). The most fun she knows how to have is getting drunk in a pub (with friends, of course, but she has definitely spent too much of the book being drunk for my personal taste). I may be too uptight but really, her work ethic was dubious too (“Holly would daydream the majority of the day, make personal phone calls, especially abroad, because she didn’t have to pay the bill, and would be first in queue to collect her monthly paycheck, which was usually spent within two weeks.“). While I get she didn’t like her job and so on, I kinda have a problem with her being so unreliable for her employers (but then perhaps everyone does that and I live in a world of my own). Oh, and she cannot even spell!! How am I supposed to identify with that???

(Well, to be completely honest with the author, Ms. Ahern was 21 when she wrote the book so understandably enough she made Holly have the ideal life for a girl that age, forgetting or ignoring the fact that Holly is supposed to be a whole decade older and presumably more mature (the kind of maturity that was nowhere in Ms. Ahern’s sight at her tender age). I can of course understand that but I still didn’t like Holly at all.)

Gerry on the other hand is a whole other matter. While I admit that we see him very little and only in situations meant to emphasize his good side, I really liked him nevertheless (at least all his letters are spelled just fine). As for the rest of the cast, the author has definitely done a good job with them, as they are multifaceted enough and at times a joy to discover — although some changes in them were somewhat forced (I am thinking here about Richard, one of Holly’s brothers, who became almost a different person mid-book).

A quote I very much liked:

Growing older became something he wanted desperately to accomplish, rather than merely a dreaded inevitability. How presumptuous they both had been never to consider growing old as an achievement and a challenge. Aging was something they’d both wanted so much to avoid.

As a final mention, I for one have never been through what Holly’s been through (thank God!), but I’ve seen it mentioned among young widows that the year the book spans is quite unrealistic, way too short a time for Holly’s heart to heal as much as it did. I can understand the need for the book to take a shorter while rather than longer (as no one would write letters for the next I don’t know how many years), and also I think that the ending is a bit ambiguous with respect to the exact amount of healing Holly has managed: show spoiler

What I liked most: I know I have already blabbed on and on about the relationships between the characters, but bear with me a bit more: my favorite part of the book was the light banter all of them shared throughout the book. Everyone has a nice sense of humor, they tease each other now and then, and they actually manage to be funny without looking like they’re trying to hard — unlike other books I read *coughWitchlingcough*

The ending was bound to appeal to me too: show spoiler

What I liked least: Out of curiosity I have seen the P.S. I Love You movie prior to reading the book. While the two have nothing in common other than some character names and the central plot (Gerry, an Irish guy, married Holly, and then he died, but not before writing her some letters), I have nevertheless the main protagonists’ physical appearance stuck in my head as belonging to them. Now, I like Gerard Butler and he did a decent job as Gerry (especially as we don’t very much see the Gerry in the book, so while I had an idea he was younger than Mr. Butler looked in the movie I didn’t much care). However Hilary Swank really and truly ruined (what was left of) Holly for me. While I have nothing against Ms. Swank herself, I kept imagining Holly looking as her, and then it felt wrong, because in the book Holly is a bit shorter and blonder and a lot more vulnerable than Ms. Swank portrayed her in the movie. But, of course, serves me right for watching the movie first :)

Recommend it to? Anyone in the mood for a chick lit story a bit more gloomy than usual. It’s a light read though and as fun as can be with the said topic.


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Popularity: 40% [?]

I picked this up because I felt like some light reading and because Jane Austen being in the title sounded promising. Not to mention the time travel which I’m usually bound to enjoy. And yet it seems like I was expecting too much and so the story didn’t manage to draw me in all the way. At times, the plot seemed slapped together simply for the sake of being, with some matters that didn’t seem to have been considered all the way. For example, there were a few instances that very much detracted from my reading pleasure, such as when two characters get married, after a two year relationship, and on their wedding night they have a conversation like “You have to know I can’t cook. My mother died when I was young and etc.” — after two years together it’s hardly believable that the subject of cooking or abilities or one’s mother dying never came up before. Or the part at the end when every villain uncovers his/her dark & dirty secrets in a scene reminding me very strongly of a bad movie. The part of the plot where our male character is secretly hunting down spies was also quite unclear for me and to be honest the only thing I did get about it was that there was a secret place where the said spies exchanged notes. The number of the said spies went up and down quite mysteriously from my point of view, ’cause I mostly failed to see the reasoning. Let’s consider for example show spoiler

The fact that has disappointed me the most though is that there is not the slightest hint of depth to be found anywhere in the book! As I said, I was looking for something light, but unfortunately this was a bit too much. Take the characters for example. Eleanor is perfectly average, she is good at designing dresses, she dreams of studying Jane Austen, nothing interesting, nothing out of the ordinary. Despite that, there is a particular character who thinks the world of her, although there is no reason given for it other than the obvious “whenever I see you I dream of kissing you” part, with no background whatsoever. I for one would have liked a bit more interaction between the two, so the guy would have discovered the gal was special in a lot more ways than sheer physical attraction (but that’s usually my main qualm when it comes to romance books).

Speaking of the male lead, he is a cliche from head to toe: proud, rich, handsome, with a secret mission in order to help his country (**swoon**), irresistibly attracted by the heroine and so on. Not a bit of substance unfortunately, nothing to make him stand out in a crowd. The same goes for the rest of the cast, from the two flighty sisters acting a bit reckless (to the extent of visiting a gentleman in his bedroom at night, unthinkable at their ages and in that time), but quite likable overall, to Jane Austen herself, putting in a cameo appearance and speaking somewhat in cliches. Darn.

It may be time to say something nice about the book too. It does have some interesting moments (unfortunately nothing above average) and a cute ending (although it sort of annoyed me that the author never gave a moment’s thought of time travel affecting the future, other than the obvious — I mean that nothing actually changed, except what the author wanted to, but time travel doesn’t work like that :( ). Funny how the more I try to think of nice things to say the more things I didn’t like come to mind. I should probably stop now.

What I liked most: Probably not the best thing in the book but a nice touch. I was amused by Ellen, the cousin of the two ghost girls. Actually, not by her (since she never makes an appearance) but by the fact that the author has chosen to hint at her having premonitory dreams: she dreams that one of her cousins will break an arm, and it happens, she dreams that her ship will sink, and it presumably happens (since we don’t actually get to meet her), and so on. It’s cool in a way that such a minor character has a potentially interesting trait while no such thing happened to the major ones.

The idea of having a scene in a butterfly-filled meadow was quite cool too :)

What I liked least: The fact that Jane Austen is mentioned in the very title, thus heightening the potential readers expectations (yes, such as I). The book is a lot closer to a bodice-ripper than anything Austenesque, so the Jane Austen part is misleading to say the least.

Recommend it to? Chick lit & romance aficionados. Don’t worry, it’s probably not as bad as I made it sound, especially if you’re a fan of the genre. :)

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Popularity: 12% [?]

I liked the way Jane grows and develops throughout the book. She is aware that her intensity and her expectations are a roadblock in her path to happiness, and all the time while at Pembrook she is doing her best to play along and, at the same time, reinvent herself. Day by day she discovers that, after all, she could very well enjoy the trip as well as the destination, and that a relationship can be savoured even if a wedding does not appear on the horizon. Oh, and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of harmless flirting now and then. Jane does change after her stint in Austenland show spoiler

The writing style is casual and enjoyable, sprinkled with funny bits that made me smile (such as “She thought she should say something witty here. She said, “Really?” “), and some pretty intense moments too (“[He] smiled in his way, the way that made her stare back and wish she could breathe.“). I couldn’t help but very much admire the diligence of the author when she created the characters’ Pembrook lines, because a good chunk of the book is written in Austen-like style, and, at least for a profane like me, it sounded quite close to the original.

Speaking of which, another thing that mightily amused me throughout the book was imagining what I myself would have done in such a setting, being forced to talk in such a style. Each time I ended up being very much impressed with the way the author has chosen to have Jane and the rest of the cast go back and forth between conversational tones: everyone is doing their best to act as 1816 as possible in order not to ruin the Experience for everyone else, and yet their true upbringing and habits do slip through the pretense now and then (making it all the more real because I really wouldn’t have believed a complete change from one way of talking to another can be achieved on such a short notice).

What I liked most: The fact that the ending is not obvious until the last few pages. Or at least it wasn’t for me. Oh, and the whole idea of an Austen-esque estate making guests feel like they went back in time is pretty cool too.

What I liked least: Chick lit, easy reading, nothing to take seriously…what’s there not to like? :)

Recommend it to? Since it’s a chick lit book I obviously recommend it to chick lit fans. Nevertheless I do encourage anyone (especially if they have a penchant for Mr. Darcy) to at least see what it’s about. It’s not perfect but if you’re in the mood for something light it might be just the thing :)


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Popularity: 11% [?]

For some reason that I don’t remember when I added this book to my TBR I expected to be enchanted by it. I was disappointed to discover that the opposite is closer to truth: I was so unenchanted with it I felt no compulsion to actually finish it (other than the fact that I always try to finish a book I started). I’m thinking it’s the characters.

My God, I really can’t say I liked the characters. Although the basic idea of having a trio of powerful sisters but with less than perfect powers was great, the way the author chose to write them was a bit lacking. Let’s take for example Delilah, the Werecat. The author wanted her to be the kind, softhearted one, plus the one that involuntarily turns into a cat when she’s nervous. How did she (the author) choose to show this to the reader? By having Delilah turn into a cat while assisting to a minor conflict between her sisters (a very minor one so her reaction seemed way overrated). Yet, later on, she manages to hold her own against things truly frightening, making the first event seem even more gratuitous. As for the softhearted part, the author wrote Delilah to be softhearted bordering on stupid: she wanted to release one of their enemies (that was nicely tied up because she was that dangerous) because “she has to be getting cramps” after being tied up for so long. Enough said.

The other characters weren’t any better. Chase somehow kept getting on my nerves, especially when he kept getting freaked out by the otherworldly creatures he ran into. I can understand why he might have been scared by some of them, of course, but he acted like he was seeing the impossible each and everytime, and one would expect a guy working for an otherwordly intelligence agency to be a bit more “in the know” than that. Not to mention he spends most of the time being afraid at anything he sees yet he turns out to be a martial art master — how plausible is that. Trillian, Camille’s irresistible lover, was annoying as hell from my point of view: so possessive and so arrogant it made me want to smack him every time he showed up. As for Camille herself she might have been okay but for her somewhat flighty mind: approximately half her thoughts (which is a lot given that she’s the narrator) were about sex. Now I do understand that she’s half Fae and as such she has a veracious sexual appetite but there’s only so many times I care to hear about how sexy Trillian is and how he makes Camille feel. Oh, and speaking of sexual appetite, as a sidenote: in the whole book there is only one male character that doesn’t try to have sex with Camille or at least touch her ass. One. And he was somewhat insane. I get it, Camille’s hot. But really?? Not even a dragon can resist her???

The dragon part was cool though. The dragon I did like (although it didn’t make that much sense to have it involved in their conflict in the first place but who cares). Especially when it came to its very own Saint George. And I have also liked Morio, the fox demon born and bred in Japan, the good guy in the story. He added an exotic touch to the book and I would have liked to see his character develop a little more with time. Menolly is interesting also, as the newbie vampire trying to get social, but she too appears too little for the reader to actually start caring for her.

Speaking of things I like, I’ve also liked most of the writing. The author has done a great job imagining the fantasy world she did, a world with creatures so varied that nothing seemed to be outside the realm of possibility, a world where magic intermingles to our daily, mundane life. A world where one can reach another realm by crossing through a portal guarded by one of the Hags of Fate (quite an irreverent name, isn’t it). Where faeries are among us and humans reactions to them vary wildly, from loving them and enlisting in their fan clubs, to considering them a threat to morality and trying to force them to go home, by picketing their premises. I only cringed a little at the fact that the author has chosen to make the otherwordly creatures to look down on one particular race. And look at the coincidence, that race was black-skinned. So unoriginal.

An idea I found interesting:

In Otherworld the land was so linked to the inhabitants that it felt like a community. Even in the dark woods, there existed a sense of comprehension and understanding. Earthside, a great chasm divided the forest from the people, underscoring the sense of distrust that I felt from the majority of humans that I met. They didn’t trust the wild, they feared the primal, and went out of their way to tame everything within reach. It was as if the wild places were at war with humanity.

As a last complaint, while reading I sometimes had the same problem I did when reading Inkheart: there is no actual limitation to what the main character can do so there’s no actual challenge as anything can be done. Case in point: Camille is looking for a guy named Tom Lane, and I imagine her thought process to be something like this “Where do I find him, where do I find him? Ooooh, look, there’s some magic! Ooooh, look, there’s a minor earth elemental (yes, just like that)! I’ll just ask him where Tom Lane is”. It seemed too easy, too much of a cop out, and I, as reader, felt cheated. I’d have preferred for Camille to find Tom Lane in a phone book.

What I liked most: The fluffy and cuddly gargoyle baby (with a name that fits it perfectly too, Maggie) that goes mooph mooph. The very idea of a baby gargoyle being fluffy as opposite to our current image about them (they’re the very opposite of cuddly since they’re made of stone).

What I liked least: The tone of the book overall: to me it seemed like it was trying too hard to sound hip and cool, and failed to be so. I got used to it after a while but it really grated on my nerves at first. The very reason why I am not planning to try the sequels any time soon.

Recommend it to? Everyone who likes urban fantasy. It’s definitely not my cup of tea but it does have some interesting parts, and there are people out there who liked it a lot more than I did, so if you’re a fan of the genre do give it a try.


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Popularity: 11% [?]

The characters are in a way cliche, the very cardboard pictures one would have expected to find in a romance novel. For example, Elizabeth. She has all the qualities a guy could want in a woman (a good sense of humor included), and she has also the kind of beauty that can only be found in books such as these (a.k.a. perfect to the point of becoming tiresome). As for Logan, he is sort of a master of all trades (or anyway, more than one), being a college-educated anthropologist, a marine, a talented piano player, good dog trainer, able handyman, and the list could go on and on. The only stain on his resume could be the fact that Elizabeth’s ten years old son Ben always beat him at chess, so there actually is one thing he cannot do. Alas, it is too little to make him feel like a real person to me but this didn’t keep me from rooting for him all throughout the book. And, of course, there’s Nana, Elizabeth’s grandmother. An old woman who knows all about the world she lives in and who enjoys expressing herself in hazy similes that no one else understands. My favorite character of them all, too, although she was a bit cliche herself.

I was amused to read in one of this book’s reviews that it is sort of the reversed version of Message in a Bottle. I almost laughed out loud reading that, surprised how I didn’t think about it myself. That book is about a woman who finds a love letter from a man and tries to find him in order to know him better. This one is about a man who finds the picture of a woman and tries to find her in order to know her better. Almost a perfect match :) (as a small spoiler, luckily the two endings differ, I was very very annoyed at the way Message in a Bottle ended; so much so that I told myself I’ll never read another Sparks novel ever again; I know, I know, and yet here I am…).

According to Wikipedia, the author has said that he is “[...] a big believer in the fact that people have the ability to influence the future in a way that seems coincidental and when that happens, the feeling of fate or destiny is amplified. [...] In the end, when writing The Lucky One, I wanted to explore the subject of fate or destiny, but in a way that reflected the reality of the world.“. I have to say I find this quite an interesting concept, although I don’t see it reflected that much in the book (or maybe it is, but with the stress on the other aspects other than the one that I find cool).

What I liked most: The idea of the picture being considered as a lucky charm. In the sense that we never actually get to know, the author never tells us whether the picture did hold some special powers (thus explaining Logan’s uncanny luck) or if they were all just a string of coincidences. Each reader is free to draw his/her own conclusions, and I liked that although I am a bit curious about the truth — was it actually something with the picture or not? I mean sure, in the real world I don’t believe either in good luck charms or (that many) coincidences, but in the world of a book the truth is anything the author wishes it to be.

What I liked least: (Possible spoiler) Why does Logan begin to consider Clayton “the center of the wheel”, the actual reason he ended up in Hampton? I can see how he is important because of his connection to Beth and his plans for her future, but I still see Beth herself the central figure not him.

Recommend it to? Everyone who likes romance books :) It’s a cute story.

Written by the same author:
Message in a Bottle

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Popularity: 85% [?]