Review: Sometimes you just have to learn to forgive yourself and live.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 19, 2013
In Finally Home by Helen Scott Taylor I got more than I was expecting.  I expected your standard romance where you had one or both people trying their best to deny they had feelings for the other.  I expected a secret where maybe her husband was embezzling money from his finance company or something like that.  I wasn't expecting the humor in the beginning of the book and the seriousness the book turned into.  And I definitely wasn't expecting the true secret Melanie Marshall carried around.The story starts out with Jack on holiday preparing to marry his fiancee Stephanie.  Jack not only gets cold feet, he realizes that he isn't in love with Stephanie and that she isn't in love with him.  He attempts to break things off, saying that he isn't in love with her, but she's not buying it.  Stephanie assumes there's someone else and she backs Jack into a corner, forcing him to tell her who.  Desperate to come up with a name, Jack tells Stephanie that he's in love with Melanie, the lady he hired to manager the hotel two months ago.  You have to keep in mind, Jack doesn't really know Melanie or anything about her.Melanie's problems started five years ago, with the police investigation of her husband Marcus for horrible crimes.  In the midst of the investigation, Marcus was killed in a car accident and the town Melanie lived in and her entire family, except for her beloved Grandma, turned against her.  Melanie's problem/secret is so bad that once people find out who she is, she always get fired and has to move to a new city.Upon returning home, Stephanie tells everyone about Jack and Melanie.  Jack's mother Imelda weighs in and just assumes they are going to get married.  Talk about pressure.  After spending some time together, Jack realizes that he does have feelings for Melanie who is NOT happy with that prospect at all.  All she wants is to be friends.  Jack sees a way to get to Melanie through her six-year-old son, Ryan.As the story progress, Melanie tells Jack very few details about her past.  Jack knows that she has some secrets, but he's willing to wait and hear what they are.  Once Melanie's secret does come out in the local newspaper, she's prepared to do what she always has done which is leave.  Jack is prepared to do whatever it is to make his soon to be family stay where they are.Finally Home is a story about learning to forgive yourself for the transgressions of others that you have no control over.  It's a story of realizing that there are bad/evil/misguided people in the world, but that not everyone is like that.  It's a story of letting go of the hurt from the past and finally allowing yourself to be happy.Source:  NetGalleyReviewed for Read Your Writes Book Reviews