Review: An emotional trip that I was glad I took
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 30, 2014
I experienced a lot of different feelings while reading this book, not a typical reaction for me.  This feelings included being sad, happy, anxious, irritated, and relieved.  Also there were a few times I laughed.  One feeling I never experienced was boredom and to me that meant the author did a good job.Regarding the characters, while I understood Caleb's anger, I felt like he held on to it too long.  Also he owed one of the characters something and was disappointed that he never gave it to him/her. ( I am trying to avoid giving spoilers which is why I am being vague).  To be honest, I always prefer my heroes to love the heroines more than they did anyone else in their lives, including former/deceased girlfriends and wives. That was not the case in this story. I felt like he loved both his deceased wife and the heroine equally.  Emma the heroine was understanding about this including what was on his body.  Again, being vague.  I would not be so understanding, it would bother me.I thought Emma was a very likable and balanced person.  To use a Goldilocks and 3 bears reference, she is just right. She is beautiful but she is not vain. By the same token, does not have a low self esteem, which seems to be the case with a lot of heroines, not matter how good they look.  She was not a scared virgin.  She had prior relationships.  By the same token, she did not sleep around either.  She was not perfect.  She would get crabby like everyone else but it was never excessive. She was flexible but stood her ground when she needed to.  She was a good friend to both men and women.  I thought Caleb was lucky to get her.  He had a lot of baggage but she handled it well.I did not read the first book in the series and was easily able to follow what was going on in this book.  To be honest, I probably will not read it even though I enjoyed the author's style of writing.  The reason because of Jessie, the heroine in the first book who made occasional appearances in this one.  I did not like Jessie and maybe that makes me a not nice person.  The problem is, that in least this book, she came off as a Pollyanna.  She was sticky sweet a good person.  She was nauseating. She did kind things for someone who tried to do something really bad to her.  I felt like I was reading about Mother Theresa and I just wanted her to go away.