Not Your Typical Fluffy Romances

 

I received a free advanced copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review on NetGalley’s website. I only review books I really love on my website! You may click on a book title or picture of the book to find it on Amazon (I am an Amazon partner).

The Love Letter

Rachel Hauck
Thomas Nelson, 352 pages, June 12, 2018.

Chloe Daschel has grown up in Hollywood—but for the first time in long career she’s fallen in love with a character and she’s willing to call in a few favors to get the part. Something about the character of Esther Longfellow pulls at her like no other character has done before. The script, a freshman effort by the unknown Jesse Gates tells the epic story of a Loyalist girl and the Revolutionary neighbor who have gone from childhood friend to something more. Maybe Chloe loves the character because Esther is everything she wants to become—strong, passionate, committed, and confident.

Chloe’s life seems more like a modern-day reality show with her disastrous mistake playing out on social media. Chloe recently found faith and wants to turn her life around. Her mysterious friend Smitty gives her a copy of the script and Chloe instantly relates to Esther.

Jesse Gates has been running for years, ever since he lost Loxley. A love letter from his seventh-great grandpa, Hamilton Lightfoot, forms the kernel of a timeless love story that looks like it will provide the break in Hollywood that Jesse’s been looking for. When he meets Chloe at a wedding, life seems brighter. But can two wounded souls have any hope of falling in love?

It depends.

Hauck expertly weaves the threads of Hamilton, Ester, Chloe, and Jesse’s stories together across the centuries in The Love Letter: A Novel. This modern-day romance keeps the reader guessing about the outcome. The way Chloe and Jesse try to live out their faith and convictions makes this more than a fluffy romance.

Falling for You

Becky Wade
Bethany House, 370 pages, May 1, 2018

Don’t let the cover of Becky Wade’s newest release fool you into thinking it’s a fluffy beach romance. While there’s romance in spades, there’s nothing fluffy about it. Falling for You (A Bradford Sisters Romance), the second in the Bradford Sisters Romance series, tells Willow’s story. Willow, thirty-one and burned out on her modeling career, has come home to run her parent’s bed and breakfast. The quaint town of Shore Point, WA seems like the perfect haven—until she realizes her epic mistake has moved there, too.

Corbin Stewart, ex-football star, has moved to a tiny town in WA so he can endure months of grueling rehab for his shoulder replacement. He doesn’t realize that his biggest regret lives close by. And he has no idea that Charlotte, his 12-year-old first cousin once removed, will talk him into a meeting with the woman he thought he loved in order to enlist her help in solving an old family mystery.

With Charlotte acting as an unwitting chaperone to the hurt of their past relationship, Corbin and Willow begin a quest to find out what happened to a woman who’s been missing for thirty years. Along the way, they discover that sparks still fly and that if we let him, God will use our mistakes to help us become more like him.