Thank you to the publisher for an ARC to review!
Rating (on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being excellent)
Quality of writing: 5
Pace: 4
Plot development: 4
Characters: 4
Enjoyability: 4
Ease of Reading: 4

Overall rating: 4 out of 5

Beautiful love story! Not a formulaic romance - thank goodness!

The premise of this book was a good one. Willa wants to become a doctor, which is not something done at that time. Her father wants her to marry. Willa discovers a love note and wants to track down the intended recipient. While the premise is a good one, the book was a struggle for me. To be honest, I almost gave up about a third of the way into the book. It's not a bad book, or a bad story—it just moves s-o-o-o-o s-l-o-w-l-y. To be fair, I'm sure many readers would describe the book as beautiful and lyrical, but I'm not the reader for that sort of book. If you are, you will probably like this one very much.

For me, the book did pick up a bit right about a third of the way through, but it wasn't long before it stalled out again. And seeing the letter fall into so many different hands frustrated me—it was like watching game of 'telephone' work it's way around the room. Another issue for me was that, though the book moved slowly, making me feel like it was going on too long, I did get left at the end wondering what happened with some of the characters. I felt like other than the Willa storyline, many of the threads were left hanging, or the storyline was wrapped up very rapidly with no real development. I came to like some of these characters and would have liked to know what happened with them. I did finish the book, and I did like it ok—but it was just ok (for me).

I received an advanced copy of this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewers program.

Fantastic

I loved this book. I picked it up due to the recommendation of a friend and I’m so grateful.

I found it very well-written and interesting. Every time I thought I knew where it was going, I got thrown for another loop.

I’m definitely looking to the rest of this author’s books now.

Clean (two kisses) romantically and language wise.

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It is not terribly often you read a book and are sick inside when it is finished because it is one you found so good. I have read some really good books lately, but this one was excellent.
The unique premise behind it, a woman wanting to be a doctor, stuck as a nurse, being pressured to marry was not all that unique, but the note driving her was.
I think often there are love stories where things are rushed, the premise of waiting for love is not demonstrated, yet in this one, it was. It was not only encouraged, but fostered. Beautiful story that I highly recommend.

4.5

Every book I’ve read by Joanna Davidson Politano is great, but this is without a doubt my favorite. What a beautiful love story.