Reviews

A clear five-out-of-five, to me, this book was absolutely perfect and *exactly* what I needed.

Honestly, this review will probably come out very jumbled, as I am completely falling over myself with how much I loved it. First of all, Nora Roberts is the queen of banter. There, I said it - the quips, the reparte, satisfying, precious, hilarious, and perfect. And what is banter if it comes from flat characters? Nothing! If I'm being perfectly candid, I was surprised at how much I adored literally every single one of these characters. They had depth, but were just simply *likeable*; so much so that at about 75% of the way through it dawned on me that I was genuinely going to miss them once the book was over.

The paranormal element was perfectly sprinkled throughout the novel; it did come secondary to the character development, the mental and life hurdles, and the romance, but because of the way it was handled that felt not only okay, but completely natural. I guess what I mean to say is, the balance was just right.

I was pleasantly surprised and relieved by the conflict in this book. Roberts didn't resort to anything like the misunderstanding or miscommunication tropes (which are totally fine in moderation, but I personally am getting very sick of them), or the "you're better off without me" tropes. Instead, she went with very real, very understandable and relatable inner conflict as her plot's main antagonist, which was like a breath of fresh air to me - especially since said inner conflict was almost always handled in a way that was satisying (either because it was resolved or because it was simply so realistic that I had nothing to complain about!)

Some of the content of the book was a little outdated, but the message behind the main plot and resolution was beautiful and uplifting, I thought. A quick word of warning, though: the beginning of the book deals with

Spoiler

spousal death

, and is really quite sad, but how it's dealt with throughout the rest of the book was truly beautiful, in my opinion.

The end was satisfying, but made you feel like the world was still going to go on after you closed the book, which was very nice. The characters were precious and a true delight, the story was interesting, the depth of conflict was relatable and important, both the internal and external dialogues were realistic and enjoyable, and - of course - the entire thing was masterfully written. An absolute delight to read!