PROMISE OF THE HEART

Author: Susan Berry

Pages: 203

Genre: Clean Romance

Synopsis

After a distasteful first meeting and a rocky start to their romance, Maggie Kinsley has been happily married to Desmond for the last eleven months. And although she was often alone when he traveled for business, she rather enjoyed how he passionately greeted her when returning home.

So when he received a letter naming him as executor of a property that belonged to a deceased family friend and had to leave for a few weeks, Maggie should have been content as she kissed him goodbye. But there was something about the whole thing that made her uneasy. Why was Desmond so evasive with her when she asked him about the previous owner. And why had he insisted she not tell anyone of his plans to stay on the property? Maggie soon found the answers to her questions were more than just a woman’s intuition, but rather something that not even her wildest, darkest fears could have foreseen.

“I so enjoyed the long-awaited final book to the trilogy the author so lovingly created. Maggie’s story has a wonderful ending, and she’ll be in my heart and mind for a long time.” – Amazon

Amazon

Excerpt

A shaking of the car startled her, as did the feeling of Desmond’s arms around her as he’d opened the door and lifted her from the seat. Now cradled in his embrace, she lost whatever control she had left. Her hands clenched the front of his shirt as she buried her head in the soft fabric. She wanted to crawl inside his skin. To get lost in the protection it offered. The warmth of his arms soon soothed her. When she loosened her grip on him, she realized he was crying too. She wiggled free and stood in front of him. With her open palm, she wiped his face, then kissed his lips. She lingered there for a moment, needing to ground herself to have any hope of gaining control over her own fractured emotions. Again, she put her hand to Desmond’s face, only this time she left it there. “Are you okay?”

Review

While billed as a clean romance (which it is), this felt like more of a romantic suspense novel.

This is a shorter book, but there is plenty of action within the pages. Maggie has some major issues going back to her childhood. I think that she would benefit from some therapy that I don’t think she ever received after witnessing her mother’s death as a child. Her sister, Jilly, doesn’t seem to have the same issues and is a major source of support for Maggie. Jilly can be a bit self-absorbed, and her timing is crazy since she keeps interrupting romantic moments between Maggie and her husband Desmond.

Desmond has some strange quirks about him. He is in his early 40’s while Maggie is 27, yet he tends to treat her as a child and not his equal partner. This can be seen when he makes decisions without talking them over with Maggie, especially when it affects her. But then, Maggie has her issues and doesn’t tell Desmond things about her past and other secrets that happen during the book. I don’t understand why she doesn’t trust him to understand her history or the current issues.

The suspense portion comes from an unknown person (initially) causing issues at a winery that Desmond inherited. We find out that this person thinks that they are the heir and is searching for the proof that he thinks is hidden on the property. I found this portion interesting leading up to the revelation of who this person was and what they were doing. I wondered if Mateo, an employee of the vineyard, had anything to do with the strange events.

Overall, this is a fast read. I did find Maggie annoying, and she was not my favorite character. This is apparently the third book in this series and reading the information about the first two books leads me to believe that this is a series to read in order to truly understand Maggie and what she is going through. Perhaps I wouldn’t have found her so annoying had I read the first two books…one will never know!

We give this book 3 1/2 paws up.

About the Author

Since Susan Berry was a young girl, she loved to write. Her imagination was filled with stories that she couldn’t write down fast enough. But it wasn’t until her grandmother had given her a Harlequin romance novel to occupy her time on a long, boring car ride that she fell in love with reading romance. The excitement of the characters first meeting and the dance of the heart that followed left Susan frantically turning pages. From that day on, Susan spent her free time with her beloved grandmother, reading the latest novels they’d retrieved from a used book store or the local second-hand shop. That reading eventually turned into the writing of her own romance novels. Novels filled with characters who have not yet found love but eventually find a way to overcome romantic troubles with humor, wit, and the consumption of lots and lots of chocolate.

Susan’s latest book is the clean romance suspense, Promise of the Heart.

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