What is it about love letters and that some of us keep them for a lifetime while others don´t? One love letter shows a woman what she had and what she wants back but she isn´t sure if she and her husband will be able to repair their marriage let alone their trust in each other. This time the author comes up with some heavy stuff in her story as well as in her characters. A broken marriage, a mother who is in esperate need to control every little part of her daughter´s life. A grown-up daughter, if I may add.
Love Letters
by Debbie MacomberRose Harbor Series #3
Publisher Ballantine Books on June 28, 2016
Genre Novel
Pages 352
Format Softcover
Source Library
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Summer is a busy season at the inn, so proprietor Jo Marie Rose and handyman Mark Taylor have spent a lot of time together keeping the property running. Despite some folks´ good-natured claims to the contrary, Jo Marie insists that Mark is only a friend. However, she seems to be thinking about this particular friend a great deal lately. Jo Marie knows surprisingly little about Mark´s life, due in no small part to his refusal to discuss it. She´s determined to learn more about his past, but first, she must face her own – and welcome three visitors who, like her, are setting out on new paths. Twenty-three-year-old Ellie Reynolds is taking a leap of faith. She´s come to Cedar Cove to meet Tom, a man she´s been corresponding with for months, and with whom she might even be falling in love. Ellie´s overprotective mother disapproves of her trip, but Ellie is determined to spread her wings. Maggie and Roy Porter are next to arrive at the inn. They are taking their first vacation alone since their children were born. In the wake of past mistakes, they hope to rekindle the spark in their marriage – and to win back each other´s trust. But Maggie must make one last confession that could forever tear them apart. For each of these characters, it will ultimately be a moment when someone wore their heart on their sleeve – and took pen to paper – that makes all the difference.
Story
Jo Marie is curious. It lays in her family and the fact that she doesn´t know a tiny little thing about her friend Mark is almost killing her. She does everything to get to know some things about him, and when she has to learn that he doesn´t like what she is trying to do, things become weird.
Style
This time it wasn´t as much fun to read as with the other two books. The tone was still sensitive and soft, yes, but I missed something I had seen in the previous books. Maybe it was because of the behavior of Ellie´s mother. That control freak who really believes that she can tell her daughter, who is her mid-twenties, what to do, and when. I almost laughed when I read that for the first time in this novel. Good, Debbie Macomber shows that not every family is a great one, and that some parents are very overprotective and that not all children get well out of it. But for my taste, it was a bit too dark and too blunt.
Characters
The curiosity Jo Marie shows towards Mark is something I will never get used to it. It looks as if she is obsessed with him, but not in a good way. What she does to make him talk and tell her something about him, is really something. At some point, I was asking myself why in the world she was acting like a loony to make him tell her. It needs trust to open to another person and to tell the deepest hidden things that are important to you. And trust needs time to grow. So why in the world is she acting the way she is? That side of Jo Marie I don´t like very much, to be honest.
Conclusion
This book wasn´t as touching and moving as the others have been. Yes, there was love, romance and again, a bit drama in it. And yes, the author wrote it in her usual sensitive and wonderful style. But for some reason, I wasn´t as hooked as I was during reading the first two books.
Happy reading
Cover of the German edition by Blanvalet published on May 16, 2016
Debbie Macomber
Debbie Macomber is the owner of the Victorian Tea Room and the yarn shop A Good Yarn, which was named after the store in her successful book Blossom Street. She is the author of Sweet Tomorrows, among many other books, and a leading voice in women´s fiction. Ten of her novels have reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists, and five of her beloved Christmas novels have been hit movies on the Hallmark Channel, including Mrs. Miracle and Mr. Miracle. Hallmark Channel also produced the original series Debbie Macomber´s Cedar Cove, based on Macomber´s Cedar Cove books. She has more than 200 million copies of her books in print worldwide. Debbie Macomber, who likes to be a grandmother, lives with her husband Wayne in Port Orchard, Washington, where her novels play and spends the winter in Florida.