Serena recs 'Girl in the Glass,' 'A Heartbeat Away'
The Girl in the Glass, Susan Meissner
What it's about (from the publisher):
Travel book editor Meg Pomeroy is finally taking a long-awaited trip to Florence, Italy, with her dad — something he promised her over 10 years ago. When Meg arrives in Italy and Dad's a no-show, her fresh disappointment contrasts the ancient art of the city, beckoning Meg to find a new point of view. Assisting her on the quest are Lorenzo and Renata DiSantis, a brother and sister team of travel writers, aspiring author Sofia Borelli, a local tour guide who claims to have descended from the famous Medici family, and Nora Orsini, a long-dead Medici who Sofia claims whispers to her through Florence's Renaissance art.
As Meg, Sofia, and Nora's stories intersect their lives will be indelibly changed as they each answer the question: What if "renaissance" isn't just a word? What if that's what happens when you dare to believe that "what is" isn't "what has to be"?
Why you should read it: Susan Meissner's prose graces each woman's story with an intricate and fragile beauty that reflects Meg's desperate love for Florence in the heart of the reader before she even boards the plane.
In fact, this might be the most romantic book you read this year. But it's not just a love story between a man and a woman; it is a threefold romance between a man and a woman, a woman and the past, and a woman and a city.
Many times while reading my eyes filled and the words blurred. At Chapter 32 my heart ached with the same beautiful sort of breaking Meg experienced as her lovely journey neared its end. But as true as that feeling was, it didn't displace the tension so necessary to keep the reader engaged and I gave a tremendous sigh of relief 15 pages later when Meg's personal renaissance led to an entirely lovely HEA.
Without a doubt, The Girl in the Glass has earned a permanent place on my keeper shelf.
A Heartbeat Away, Harry Kraus
What it's about (from the publisher):
Someone calls to her.
A man.
An evil man who is burning.
And then — darkness.
Surgeon Tori Taylor rules the operating room with a precision that makes residents feel faint, nurses cower, and colleagues take notes. But even with the honor of being a respected surgeon, Tori finds herself alone in her moment of desperation — dying on her own operating table.
Tori Taylor needs a heart transplant, but what she receives is far more than a donor organ. Lying loveless and friendless in the recovery room, Tori discovers that memories are surfacing in her mind that are not her own. Terrifying glimpses of murder drive her out of the world of medicine and into a homicide investigation.
As her ordered life grows more and more chaotic, Tori's new heart begins to melt her icy walls from the inside out. This new heart of flesh is transforming her heart of stone, and there's no going back.
Why you should read it: Author Harry Kraus, M.D., is a missionary — a surgeon in Kenya — and he writes medical "stand-alone suspense" with an accessible sense of wonder. With a keen eye for pacing, Kraus keeps the reader riveted for the whole of the story.
Even though seasoned readers may figure out the whodunit aspects of the plot before the lead characters do, their discoveries are portrayed in such a way that it feels fresh, even if it is only confirming what the reader has already assumed to be true. With romance, hospital politics and life-or-death action, A Heartbeat Away will grab your attention and command you to try to wrap your mind around the fantastic idea of cellular memory and how it could affect a person's inner life and outer actions.
The Reunion, Dan Walsh
What it's about (from the publisher):
Everything lost can be found.
Aaron Miller knows a thing or two about loss. He's lost love. Dignity. Second, and even third, chances. Once honored for his heroism, he now lives in near obscurity, working as a handyman in a humble trailer park.
But God is a master of finding and redeeming the lost things of life. Unbeknownst to Aaron. someone is searching for him.
With deep insight into the human heart, consummate storyteller Dan Walsh gently weaves a tale of a life spent in the shadows but meant for the light. Through tense scenes of war and tender moments of romance, The Reunion will make you believe that everyone can get a second chance at love.
Why you should read it: This book has a pretty big cast of characters, but Walsh does it well and, as the storylines collide the reader becomes fully invested in each individual HEA.
Aaron's humility, born of failure and whitewashed by grace, is almost a tangible thing. A flashback to Vietnam is action-packed and tense with a sense of doom, but in the present, it fuels John's desperation to find Aaron. The romance between Karen and Dave is the sort that lets you feel the butterflies of falling in love right along with them, yet your heart breaks when other men's failures threaten to poison Karen's chance at love.
With a gift for pulling the heartstrings and encouraging a slow build of tears within his reader, Dan Walsh is quickly becoming one of my favorite go-to storytellers for sweet romance and intricately woven parallel storylines.
A writer, performer and accomplished partaker of dark chocolate, Serena Chase lives in Iowa with her husband and two daughters. Her reviews can also be found at the blog Edgy Inspirational Romance.