Review: Heartwarming Tale of Love
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 8, 2013
Zachary Benson has a secret...He's in love with his best friend's sister, Elena (Lena) Rodriguez.  Unfortunately, there's the "code" to adhere to plus she's a busy gal.  Enlisting in the Army and becoming a doctor has consumed all of Lena's time.  And then she gets deployed to Afghanistan, leaving Zack on the tarmac not even knowing he showed up to see her depart - and possibly tell her how much he cares for her.Elena is from a large family and likes to indicate that she joined the Army for some alone time.  After leaving for Afghanistan, Lena receives a letter each month of her deployment, plus an extra one on her birthday, from a secret admirer.  Over the course of those months she's managed to fall in love with the author, even though she doesn't know who it is.  One of the final letters sets a face-to-face meeting date on Christmas morning, and Lena is both nervous and excited.When Lena is finally back home, she's still thinking heavily about the letters but equally as heavy about Zack.  Lena has been crushing on him since she was 12, knowing that he was off-limits.  But she's a mature adult now and when she thinks she's figured out  the connection between the letters and Zack's new found attention to her, she drops her inhibitions and goes with her feelings.When it's time to see if the letter writer and Zack are one and the same, a tragic event shakes up her entire world.I absolutely adored this novella.  The chemistry between Zack and Lena is low key at best at the beginning, but as the novella progresses there is a definite growing strength of the sparks.  Both have grown up believing that they can be nothing more than friends/brother-sisterly, knowing full well that there were other feelings invading their hearts.  The letters Lena receives are heartwarming and yet her family, while supportive, also make sure that when she goes to meet the mystery man she is not allowed to go alone.  In this day and age it's important to make sure there is a certain level of safety.  It's very responsible of the author to incorporate safety into her writing.Speaking of the author's writing, Bethanne Strasser writes wonderfully.  The dialogue of her characters is fluid, understandable, and smooth.  There aren't any uncomfortable sections or areas that I felt needed to skip.  The author provided enough background and details to convey the story but not so many that it felt cluttered or over-embellished.  I found this novella to be very worthy of my time and I'm glad I was able to add Letters from Home to my library.Review Copy Courtesy Of:  Entangled Publishing, at no cost in exchange for an honest review.