Having the ability to write this good should be illegal, or revered somehow. Just when I thought I knew what was going to happen next in THE REASON IS YOU, author Sharla Lovelace made sure I knew that she was the one in control of my emotions!
Publication date – Trade: April 3, 2012
Mass Market Available May 7, 2013
ISBN-13: 9780425247129
Rated 5 out of 5 Stars, Recommended Read!
Book from the Print TBR Mountain Range, received free through Goodreads First Reads.
I received THE REASON IS YOU for free through Goodreads First Reads. Had I known this book would be this good, I would have read it a long time ago. I should have suspected, given how much I loved Ms. Lovelace’s second book, BEFORE AND EVER SINCE. But, being skeptical, I always wonder if an author can hit one outside of the park over and over again. Not this time. I have proof that Sharla Lovelace’s talent is golden, and I’m forever grateful for being able to experience her gift. Both books will be part of my rare rereads in the future.
Dani Shane has experienced disappointments in her life but nothing is harder than going home at forty-years-old, feeling like the alien that everyone had always thought that she was, back to square one. It’s even harder when she has to bring her teenage daughter along for the ride. A single mother and having lost her job, Dani has no choice than to move them back to her hometown to live with her dad.
Being home with her dad feels good, if she could just say the same for the rest of the small-minded people who live in this town. Now she has to face them as a strong woman who doesn’t want her daughter to experience life under the same small-minded scrutiny. Especially when she realizes that her daughter is more like her than she ever imagined.
Dani has many secrets. The fact that she can see ghosts is just the beginning…
Although I sensed some of the surprises coming in this book, how they were revealed and the depth that they went into emotionally was breathtaking. I was completely mesmerized by the characters, taken in by their laughter and often sarcastic look at the world around them, a slow jaunt into their lives that soon becomes a whirlwind of feelings. Sometimes in awe, sometimes in shock, and sometimes in sorrow, the love found within these pages is an amazing journey.
Dani is quirky and her daughter suits her perfectly. Their banter is often laugh-out-loud funny and their relationship with Dani’s father is just as charming. Real-to-life in a way that makes the characters jump off the page and into your heart, as if they’re someone you know. None of them are perfect, which makes them great characters to connect with.
Following Dani’s journey to a happy-ever-after is gut-wrenching at times, but once you get started, you can’t bear to stop reading until you know how this book will end. Why do we read fiction? To be taken on a journey that we can’t quite imagine ourselves is my answer. There are many great books that do that, week after week I find them, but then I found “the one”. I can’t fathom for the life of me how anyone can write a book this good. It’s beyond conception when every layer is leading to a climax so completely unexpected and so good, that you just sit there stupefied, wondering how you were so sucked into it that the world you’re experiencing plays back like a movie in your head.
THE REASON IS YOU is the one book that everyone should read because it touches on the basic emotion within our lives. What is love, really? And, what risks would you take in the name of love?
After gasping through so many emotional pages, witness to a life that had always been leading to this very moment, I realized that I had just experienced a master storyteller. Bravo, Sharla Lovelace!
I’m not saying anything else. I want each reader to be just as surprised as I was—do yourself a favor and experience this romantic story for yourself. It’s beyond exceptional.
Order Print or eBook at AMAZON | B&N
~~~
What’s on your mountain?
