Review: 5+ Stars for a Beautifully written story of second chance at a first love
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 16, 2014
"Sometimes second chances work out even better than the first because you learn from your mistakes" ~ unknownThe Face In The Mirror is a beautiful story of a second chance at love, a love that is so amazing that even after many years it has never died and is still so strong, that as a reader, you truly feel their love for each other as well.  But along with being a story about a second chance at a first love, it’s a beautiful story of a journey between a mother and a daughter and the special bond they shared.  This book was so wonderfully written that it sucked me in from the moment I started reading and wouldn’t let me go until it was done and then it still hung on, to my head and my heart.Renee “Renie” and Mitchell met when they were just teenagers thanks to Renie’s granny and from that first time meeting, they were smitten.  They fell in love and got married but when life got tough, Renie walked away from Mitchell and the love they shared.  Several years later when Renie suffers a tragic loss, it brings Mitchell back into her life and they both soon realize, their love is still strong as ever.  But is there love that “one strong everlasting love” that everyone around them believes it to be. The journey Barbara takes us on is such a heart warming one, where we get to see these two as a young couple in love but also as a mature couple learning to love the people they have now become but along that journey we see the amazing bond Renie shared with both her Granny and her mother.”I was lost. I was nothing, no one without you.  I am Renie, a woman who is in love and hopeful that your future has a place for me.” ~ ReneeI really loved Renee’s ”Renie’s” character throughout the story.  We got to see her as a young teenage girl falling in the love for the first time, we got to see her as an adult where her overbearing father manipulated her and her life, we got to see her deal with tragedy but then as she welcomed Mitchell back into her life, we watched her slowly discover herself as she tried moved past what had happened, moved past the mistakes she has made and learned family secrets that would never allow her to look at those individuals the same.  Renee had moments that she struggled but she recognized where she had went wrong in the past with Mitchell and she tried to learn from those mistakes and move forward.”More than any love song can express, more than any thought you can imagine or think.  I love you more than every next breath I breathe…."~ MitchellMitchell is handsome, kind, caring, thoughtful, most amazing gentleman you could possible ever want to be your next BBF.  From the first moment that Mitchell walked in the room and Renee saw him, I was smitten by him, a man in a suit, with that one dimple, what could be more perfect than that.  He truly loved Renie with everything he had from the time they were teenagers.  He never pushed her or pressured her, he just loved her for who she was.  If there was one fault  he had or mistake he made, it was not fighting hard enough for her the first time around.  Mitchell truly was  <i>”THE ONE”</i> for Renie in every way possible.  I love how waited and prayed all those years that she would come back, that he never stopped loving her and when she did, he looked to their future, never to the past, he was never bitter or angry, he was just happy to have her love once again.This book was such an amazing journey to follow these two wonderful characters that Barbara Stewart has created.  It took very little time for this book to entwine itself into my thoughts and into my heart as it took me on such an amazing and touching emotional roller coaster.  It pulled me in so much that it was hard not to feel the many emotions they experienced, I cried (many time but some were actually good cries), I smiled, I held my breath, and I fell absolutely head over heels in love with this book, with Mitchell and Renie, as well as the many other integral characters that play such an important part in their lives.  As I have come to the end of this book, and may I say I freaking loved the epilogue,  I am left sitting here with a serious book hangover, these characters are in my head and my heart and I just cannot, nor do I want to, get them out of my head, they have touched me, and like Barbara’s other books I have read, I walk away feeling a little more complete but also feel like I these characters and their stories will always be a part of me and have changed me a bit in a way I look at my life and my one true love.