Review: Great romantic story
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 28, 2014
Enjoyed this book a lot. While I love River’s prose, in this book there were times the flowery-ness overwhelmed the story and managed to bog it down a bit. I have a feeling perhaps her writing may be better suited to novella length type of stories, as I muddled through sections that were just mired in too many words.The story itself was quite lovely and the last few chapters of the book really sealed the 4 stars from me.We meet ‘Des’, Destiny, an unemployed woman on the brink of bankruptcy who comes to the local library everyday to do her job search . She has a secret crush on a man who has been hired to fix up and replace some of the rotting wood carvings that have been hanging in the library for a long time. She doesn’t know much except that he’s a bit quiet, has a foreign accent and is extremely focused on his work. When Des gets her most recent Job rejection, she breaks down in the middle of the library.Seeing the woman he’s been eyeing for months suddenly falling apart at one of the study carrels, Hefin can’t sit by and do nothing. He comes over to try and find out what’s wrong and cheer her up. The courtship that transpires is slow and ambling, but man there are some make out sessions that are pretty damn steamy. I’ll never think about the backseat of a beat up ol’ limo the same, that’s for sure.I enjoyed how Destiny finally came around to seeing that she needed to grow up and stop being the ‘mom’ to her siblings. They each used her as a crutch in their own way, and Destiny let them. I liked that Hefin held his ground, that he needed to find his own way in the world as well, after moving to the states to marry an American. He wasn’t stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, but rather his reasons were valid and actually proved to be the catalyst for Destiny to see her own as well.I enjoyed the plot, even with the heavy handed prose. If you have a little time, I recommend this one. It’s not your easy, breezy light romance novel, but it is still definitely worth a read.Curious to see where she takes this series in the future and I hope she eases up on her weighty words as well.