Review: Called Home-Two Hearts Answer

From Goodreads:
Emma Benson's view of life was crafted by the death of her brother as a child, abandonment by her father and later, the man she trusted she would marry, until David Schlosser-back in town after years in New York writing best-selling novels-threatens her neatly tended life. Romance blooms. Emma and David eventually persevere in the face of tragedy, refusing to leave their dreams behind.

When I was first contacted by the author to review this book, she told me that although this is a sweet romance, the character, Emma, is not so sweet.  Boy, she sure wasn’t kidding.  Emma is bitter, rude and mean.  I was really put off by her character.  For a good part of the book, Emma states that she has reasons to be rude, but we don’t really know as a reader, what those reasons are.  They are very slow coming forth, and in the meantime, all I could think was, “wow, this is one witchy woman.”  Unfortunately, by the time I got around to understanding Emma’s background, I was too firmly in the “not so fond of Emma” corner.  I know firsthand that life can hand us all hard things.  Piles of hard things.  I’m not so sure that this excuses 

anyone from being polite and kind to others.

I will say that Emma did eventually have a change of heart and begin to act more kindly.  She recognized her fault and made an effort to undo the damage.

I guess that I would consider David to be the resident Saint in the book.  That boy just kept coming back for more and more.  I’m not so sure I was convinced at what he saw in Emma in the beginning that made him keep coming back, but in this instance, patience paid off.  David is quite a determined fellow.  I kind of like how he would just kiss Emma and then walk off, leaving her flustered and unsure.  It was funny.

I really wished a few times in the book that I had more background into both David and Emma.  Maybe some insight to life before the book started.  I got bits and pieces as the book progressed but I didn’t really get it fully, I guess.  Like the relationship between David and his parents, or David and his friends.  I think if could have understood Emma’s relationship with her brother and father better, I might have been more sympathetic to her plight.

The book was the perfect balance of romance and mystery for me.  The kisses were nice and steamy without crossing the line into something else which I, personally, really appreciated. 

My thanks to Gloria Schumann for allowing me to read and review her book.  She has done a good job here with a sweet romance that I was interested in from beginning to end.

You can find more about Gloria here.