Author: Katie O’Boyle

Book: Finding the Way Back to Love

tl;dr recommendation: one star reviews, one star reviews EVERYWHERE. or just here. whichever.

Book Summary:

Gwen Forrester, Ph.D., 32, gifted psychotherapist and beautiful widow, is stuck in a rut, dating hotties on the fast track, when what she really wants is a life partner who’ll help her raise a family and make a difference in her home town of Tompkins Falls. New in town, Officer Peter Shaughnessy, 30, has recovered from the damage he suffered in a drug bust in his hometown of Syracuse, but he’s still smarting from his ex-wife’s betrayal and, before that, the years of abuse from his alcoholic father.

When Gwen’s very-pregnant niece, Haley, trips the security system at Gwen’s lakeside home one moonlit summer night, it’s love at first sight for responding Officer Peter and stunned Aunt Gwen. By joining forces to help Haley, Peter and Gwen discover they’re a good team. Long, exhilarating canoe trips convince them they’re on the same page with their life goals. Then a destructive squall lands them on the rocks, and a night of stormy passion reveals painful truths that drive them apart. Are they willing to go to any length to find their way back to love?

Longer Review:

Go read the summary if you haven’t already. Sounds fine, right? I thought so too. I considered dnf’ing this book, but then I wouldn’t be able to rate it (due to my own policy of not rating books I don’t finish) and I felt that anything I said would be looked at in the “hey, she didn’t even fucking read the book” kind of way. So I did. I read the whole thing. I did it so you don’t have to. You’re welcome.

I am not being overly harsh here. I wasn’t totally in love with the writing style as I felt there were too many adjectives and descriptors used, but overall, I could have gotten used to that. No, that’s not my issue. My issue is with the fact that this book claims to be a contemporary romance, but it really isn’t.

Quick summary: Hailey doesn’t “trip the security alarm” at Gwen’s house – she breaks in. Actually breaks a door. Lie #1 in blurb. However, Peter’s a cop and gets called to the house to investigate. He meets Gwen then and it’s instalove. Sort of.

Let’s walk through my journey:

Me at 38%:  is this a Christian romance?! I’m having a panic attack over here.

At this point I’m in between a panic attack and laughing my face off because I recently read a Christian Romance while drinking one night for funsies and I was having flashbacks. Let me clarify here: I have zero problem if you’re religious. I just don’t don’t want to surprise read about them. I grew up super religious. My father went to seminary – I am the preacher’s daughter (surprising, right? or maybe not…). Anyway, I don’t care if you’re religious but I wanted to read a romance novel. With kissing, and sexing, and not God-ing. I didn’t sign up to read about their guilt over what God is going to think or every four words being about letting God take control. JESUS FUCK (haha). If I wanted to talk about religion and not read about sex, I would call my mother.

The book summary says absolutely nothing about how the main characters are pretty God-centric (Lie #2). I found a mention of this book being deemed an inspirational romance on Amazon, but even that doesn’t mention the heavy emphasis on religion. Just be honest. If your book caters to religious people who like a little sex, then CATER TO THOSE PEOPLE. I am not those people.

Me at 50%: I think the one night of passion this book promises is with the Lord Jesus our Savior. Fuck me to hell.

I was waiting for the sex. Waiting, and hoping and praying *cough*cough*, but it was like it was never going to happen. I know that the blurb promised “one night of passion” but I was pretty convinced that was lie #3 after the first half of this book. FINALLY. FINALLY it happens around 54%. There are I believe three sex scenes in this book (so technically more than one night), which aren’t bad. However, I was then conflicted – I mean, for such religious people, they’re totally fine with premarital sex. I started to think I actually liked them a little more. But really, no. I didn’t. Because of my next point….

Me at 91%: I need a fucking drink. which is somewhat hilariously inappropriate as this entire book is about alcoholics.

Did I mention that the entire book is about alcoholics? Sorry, in my ranting haze I must have forgotten. But now you know: the entire town is comprised of recovering alcoholics. I am not kidding. Just about every single person in this book is a recovering alcoholic – they have tons of AA meetings, which I imagine are not very anonymous being as how it’s a small town. They should just call it a weekly town meeting. (Note, the blurb says nothing about the characters being alcoholics).

They should really put that on a pamphlet for people like Peter who have issues with drunks. This portion of the story killed me. Peter’s issues with drunks was ridiculously up-sold. Like, how deeply seated are your issues that you’re going to trip people who you know are recovering alcoholics? DICK MOVE, BRO. It’s pretty much his only issue, and I thought it was pretty dumb.

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I also had other issues with the story. For example, Gwen would basically wish for something to happen and it would – except for when it came to her relationship with Peter. There were also so many mundane things that happened that did absolutely nothing to push the story further along. I didn’t fully understand the relationship between Hailey and Rick – they both lacked character development – and I felt that the author totally forgot about how giving up a baby for adoption is one of the more traumatic life events someone can go through. Instead, Hailey was just ‘la la la, let’s go canoeing. Btw, I’m an alcoholic.’ [SHOCKING]. The ending was incredibly anticlimactic for me, and I was just rejoicing that it was over.

I realize this is really long and pretty ranty and I’m going to stop now; however, I don’t give out one-star reviews lightly. I respect that it takes a long time to write a book, so if I’m going to rate a book poorly, there deserves to be some commentary along with it. So, I deem this book a christian alcoholic romance. I didn’t like it. Sorry.

[I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review]