Review: It's makes you believe in love.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 9, 2014
While this is the fourth book in the Heart of Montana series, it can be read as a stand-alone.Zoe Holly Flannigan is a complex character.  She was in a wreck a couple of years ago so throughout the duration of the story we get to see three sides of her.  First there’s the pre-accident Zoe who was sunny and carefree.  She taught art and enjoyed going out with her friends.  Then the second aspect of her is post collision when she is dark and brooding.  So full of guilt, she often finds herself with self-destructive tendencies.  No longer an art teacher, she does web development for a small firm where she only interacts mostly with one other person.  The final part of her is when she truly begins to heal.  Zoe becomes an amalgam of her two previous personas, still feeling remorseful but also living for the first time in years.After running from his indifferent and wealthy family, Paul found himself starting a new life as a principal in Montana instead of an attorney in Boston.  He is a true romantic but unfortunately he’s been passed over more than once by what he thought were loves of his life.  Just as he’s ready to give up the search, his friend Maggie has set him up with a girl on the internet.  The problem is she is in New England.Much of the story is about two people getting to know each other before they physically meet.  How much of what they say is true versus what they want to be the truth?  In many ways it’s also about preconceived notions, misconceptions, and the lack of correcting those until it’s too late.  For the first time in years, Zoe has light at the end of her dark tunnel and all she wants is to be the happy person she was before the accident and be that person with Paul.  She sets out to physically get back to that person before meeting Paul thinking he’ll be none the wiser.  Regrettably, he puts a kink in her plan when he decides he’s going to show up the weekend before her final plastic surgery instead of the originally projected Christmas date.  Now in a desperate attempt to save what they’ve built, she goes to Montana to explain.  Will he still give her a chance?I’ve fell in love with Katy’s writing back when I read Playing for Love (Review:  Playing for Love at Deep Haven by Katy Regnery).  She easily conveys enormously emotional stories and this is no exception.  I remember tearing up in the first book and a little more with each new one.  With this one, I won’t even try to hide the tears because they were sprinkled throughout.  It is gut-wrenching to see how Zoe can’t move past an accident and continues to find ways to punish herself.  Perhaps even worse, is how she believes she doesn’t deserve happiness or love.  Unexpectedly, Paul has ideal complimentary traits to open her up and allow Zoe’s vulnerabilities of her lack of perfection to be assuaged.  It is astonishing to read the flawed humanness and how it develops into prolific connection.Rating:  5 Stars~Complimentary copy received in exchange for honest review.~