Review: Emotion-filled storyline with endearing characters.  Can't wait for Book 3!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 4, 2014
Kiss Me I'm Yours is the second in a trilogy that revolves around time travel and finding love.  After reading Books 1 (Kiss Me I'm Irish) and 2, I felt the second was even stronger than the first and did a much better job of showing the emotional side and connection between the main characters.Here we have the story of Gabriel and Sophie.  A third character, a young girl that doesn't speak who Sophie names Angela also plays a large role throughout the book.Instead of going forward in time like Book 1, the main character, Sophie, gets to travel back in time from present day Nashville to Nashville, 1865.  Sophie is an ambitious young woman who has opened up a yoga studio and trying to make a go of it.  She has friends and family, but is unlucky in love and has just broken up with her loser boyfriend.  After a night of intense drinking with her girlfriends, she goes to her ex's apartment to give him the what for when she inadvertently goes through a time portal and finds herself with a bump on her head, lying in a field she doesn't recall, and is about to be raped by two men.Gabriel, who is in the midst of hanging himself due to his severe depression is first rescued by a young girl he's never met, then upon hearing Sophie's screams, is able to run the guys off before anything happens.  Just as Emily, from Book 1, finds herself living with Liam and Tinker because they are the first people she meets, Sophie finds herself back at Gabriel's home because she doesn't know anyone else and is completely out of her element.  Sophie and the young girl immediately bond (even though Sophie nor Gabriel know where she came from) and they become an instant "family" as they try to figure out what to do next.Unlike Emily, who lived in England, then found herself in Tennessee, Sophie actually lives in modern day Nashville, so when she's back in 1865, she knows the area, landmarks, etc.  It's funny to see her totally convinced she's in some type of reality show and everyone around her is an actor.  Even trying to get back to downtown Nashville she can't believe the capital is "brand new" and the interstate she drives on everyday is nothing but a dirt road.I enjoyed the background information regarding Tennessee and its view of the Civil War as well as how residents in the area Gabriel lives regarded the war.  As in the first book, the reader gets a sense of what it would be like to really live in that time period, i.e. clothing, hygiene, food, transportation, etc. and we see Sophie struggle with it.  She lands back in late summer so without any air conditioning, the chance to regularly bathe or deodorant, it makes life a bit uncomfortable.  Add in the heavy layers of clothing she has to wear to look respectable and one can only wonder how more people didn't die of heatstroke.The scenes where she's teaching Gabriel yoga moves and giving him massages are cute as well as believable.  She also brings modern into the past, such as utilizing specific items to create hygiene and housecleaning products she saw used on Martha Stewart or described on the Internet.  The fact that Gabriel starts to employ some of them on his own makes it even more endearing.Both books in the series are very tame in terms of romance but unlike book 1, I felt Gabriel's character was strongly developed.  He was a minister pre-Civil War and after going to war and losing his church, he is working on his late brother's tobacco farm even though he has no interest in farming.  He has lost his family and is really struggling emotionally.  His faith in God is all but gone.  The appearance of Sophie and Angela are a hindrance on the one hand, due to the social taboos and pressures of having unmarried, unrelated females living with a single man, yet, on the other hand, he feels he's been given his life back when Sophie enters it and very quickly can't imagine living without her.The reader senses the love Gabriel has for Sophie and Ms. Street's ability to convey that emotion with just a look or a few words makes your heart ache for Gabriel as he tries to make Sophie love him enough to stay in his time.  You also feel for Sophie as she only wants to go home, yet she grows to love Gabriel and knows what a good and genuine person he is.  The type of man she wouldn't hesitate to be with if she found him in 2013.The conclusion of the storyline has some twists and turns.  Time travel books are always iffy for me as I like to see the main characters together; not some bogus descendant or the reincarnation of someone's soul.  I breathed a sigh of relief when this didn't happen.While both books are connected by the thinnest of threads, that thread is strong enough to make you want to read the third installment.  You don't necessarily have to read the first, however, to enjoy the second.Bella Street has now gone on my list of authors to watch for and I can't wait for Book 3 to see how the storyline of certain characters will be resolved.