Tag: Sherry Kyle

Review: Delivered with Love by Sherry Kyle

Posted April 1, 2011 by Tracy in Reviews | 3 Comments

An old love letter found in the glove compartment of a young woman’s inherited 1972 Volkswagen propels her to leave her life in Los Angeles and go to the small town of Capitola, California. There her dream of finding the writer of the letter leads her on an unexpected journey that changes her life forever.
Claire James, age twenty-three, is ready to make it on her own. When she’s fired from her job as a waitress and subsequently kicked out of her sister’s home, she sees it as an opportunity to start over. But even before moving, a thirty-five-year-old love letter written to her mother keeps Claire stuck in the past. Michael Thompson, a middle-aged real estate agent, wants to keep the past where it belongs – at least until his grown daughter is married. But, then a young woman comes to town . .
Claire’s not been loving life since her mother died a year ago. She’s been living with her sister and brother-in-law and though she loves her sister she really doesn’t like her drunken b-i-l at all. One day she gets fired from her waitressing job and because of that her b-i-l kicks her out of the house. Claire decides to head to Capitola, CA from LA. Why Capitola? Well, she found a letter in the glove box of her late mother’s ’72 VW and she’s so curious about the sender that she’s going to check out the return address on the letter. Too bad the letter wasn’t actually signed so she has no clue who she’s looking for.
On her way up the coast she gets into an accident by rear-ending an RV but the owners take her under their wing and she ends up at a campsite making friends with the RV owners as well as their friends. She makes it to Capitola faster than she thought she would and events start happening that puts her right into a position to truly find out who wrote the love letter along with other things she never thought she’s end up hearing.
She also meets Blake who is her new neighbor and a romance blooms – but is Claire ready to stay in Capitola for the long run and is Blake as nice as she thinks or will he end up being like all the other men in her life have been, a disappointment.
This is an inspirational book and not something that I would normally read, but when I saw the blurb the idea of this woman heading off to find out about her mother’s past really intrigued me. The letter truly changes many, many lives in the end, including Claire’s in unexpected ways. I don’t think she really thought about the past that she might possibly be dredging up when she was so insistent about finding the author of the letter and exactly what that person meant to her mother.
While I liked the story to a point there were some issues that I had with it. First of all, Claire’s trip to Capitola and the very kind people that she met along the way. It just didn’t seem feasible to me that any of it would happen. Yes, I can understand people being nice but everyone was a bit over the top in their helpfulness. While I understand that the author was trying to get across that these were good Christian people, the likelihood of all of the people Claire met along the way helping her just didn’t speak of reality to me.
Once she got to Capitola she ended up knowing more than one person and that was too coincidental for me. I know that this is fiction but the chance of that happening once is so low that to have her know two different people was nuts.
In the end while I liked the story as a whole I just didn’t find myself connected to or emotional about anyone in the story. It took me a long time to begin to like Claire; Michael, who wrote the letter, was not a very nice person until the end of the book and Michael’s wife was really too accepting of events for my liking. I really loved Geraldine, Michael’s aged mother in this story and frankly the neighbor, Blake was one of the best characters in the book – kind, attentive and giving.
Rating: 3 out of 5


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What I Read Last Week

Posted March 28, 2011 by Tracy in Features | 13 Comments

Good morning!
How was everyone’s weekend? Hopefully it was all good. Mine was pretty quiet. My hubby’s b-day was yesterday and we had a lovely lunch with his parents on Saturday and then another wonderful dinner with my family yesterday.
Since there’s not much going on around here I’ll get right to the books I read this past week.
My first read was One Magic Moment by Lynn Kurland. This one doesn’t release until early May but I really loved Kurland’s time travel novel’s. This one was good but it almost felt like 2 different books to me. The first was the meeting of the couple and it was so sweet and I was loving where the romance was heading. Then the couple time traveled and the tone of the book changed. Still good but not as good as the first part of the book, imho. I read this one for The Book Binge so I’ll let you know when my review posts. 3.5 out of 5
Next up was another book for The Book Binge, Hidden Embers by Tessa Adams. (This one also releases at the beginning of May.) In this book we meet Jasmine who is going to New Mexico to help try to find something that will help the Dragonstar clan with the virus that is killing their people (the same virus we learned about in book 1). Quinn and Jasmine hit it off but there are roadblocks in their way. This was a good story but I did have some issues with it. I’ll let you know when my review posts. 3.25 out of 5
Delivered with Love by Sherry Kyle was my next read. This was an inspirational book about a twenty-something girl who is trying to find out more about her deceased mother’s past. She heads out on a road trip and the info that she discovers was nothing like she expected. A good book but more than a few parts of it, I felt, were really unrealistic. My review of this one will go up on Friday. 3 out of 5
When Holly was down last weekend she talked me into buying What I Did for a Duke by Julie Anne Long. I’d heard good things about the book and had planned on reading it but maybe not too soon. When I really looked though I discovered that it was a revenge story and I hesitated. I’ve discovered that I really don’t like revenge plots all that much any more so what to do? In steps Holly and said DO IT! I caved and read it and it was SO good! I loved it. It’s definitely one of my favorite reads of the year so far. I loved the duke – his character was entertaining as well as so heart wrenching. I loved Genevieve even though she was a bit wishy-washy at times. I adored how Long (this was my first read by her) didn’t pull any punches with the fact that the duke is almost 40 and in fact even had Genevieve make mention of the lines on his face. Just a great book. If you like historicals then you won’t want to miss this one. 5 out of 5
My Tracy’s TBR Challenge read for the week was The Ghost Wore Yellow Socks by Josh Lanyon. This was another of Josh’s great mystery stories. Perry comes home early from a vacation and finds a dead body in his bathtub. He goes to get help but when the person goes to check it out the body is gone. His neighbor, ex Navy SEAL, Nick, decides to help out and not only do they work together to solve the mystery but they end up having a relationship as well. A really good mystery and romance mix. 4 out of 5
Last on the list was A Love Rekindled by Myne Whitman. This was the story of Efe who has returned to Nigeria after 7 years when she runs into her ex-fiance who broke her heart. The fiancé, Kevwe, however, believes that Efe broke his heart all those years ago. Can they get to the bottom of the issue and rekindle their love? I’ll be reviewing this on Wednesday so I’ll tell you more then. 3 out of 5
My Book Binge reviews that posted last week:

Happy Reading!


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