Sunday, 5 June 2016

Imagine That by Kristin Wallace (Romance, 10E/10E, short 'n' sweet review)

March 2015, CreateSpace, 380 pages, Paperback, Review copy from Clean Reads

Summary from Clean Reads
Children’s author Emily Sinclair was supposed to be the next J.K. Rowling…Until her second book flopped and her imagination went on the fritz. Like the storybook heroes of her childhood, Emily sets out on an epic adventure to find inspiration again. Till a dead car lands her in Covington Falls, a small, Southern town with a healing power of its own. Soon Emily is taking up her quest, looking for inspiration driving a mobile library van, as a companion to a crotchety old woman and her insomniac dog, and as a very ungraceful baker’s assistant.

Of course, what really sparks her romantic fantasies is a valiant hero, though he yields a paint roller instead of a sword. Rugged, blue-collar Nate Cooper has spent most of his life avoiding the printed page. These days he doesn’t have much use for fancy words and certainly not for a slightly off-center writer on the lam. Not when his mother is battling cancer, his little brother has morphed into a teenaged ogre, and God seems to have taken a vacation. On paper, these two would seem the least likely pairing, and a happily ever after noth-ing but fantasy. But with faith and imagination Emily and Nate are about to write a new chapter that will lead to unexpected love.

Nayu's thoughts 
A wonderfully sweet and clean romance tale about an author who has a massive case of writer's block and is trying to figure out her life in a new town. That's it in a nutshell, although there is ever so much more to the tale. I was super intrigued about Emily being an author, since I'm one, albeit unpublished, and since I have the opposite problem to her I wanted to know what having no ideas was like. It's really tough on her, and I felt said because writing makes me blissfully happy, and she's known what it's like to write but can't gain access to it. 

This is from CleanReads, a site providing clean reads :) The romance is rather sweet, and while it fits a similar formula to over books in the genre I love how strong faith is to most of the characters, and how it winds itself in to Emily's life. Slowly she builds up good friends – trust me when I say her relationship with Aurora is one of the funniest, as is the indomitable trio Julie, Grace, and another I can't remember the name off the top of my head who lend their wisdom to her in a chance meeting, and continue to interfere in her life all the way through the book. Everyone needs friends like those! 

I love how much of a disaster Emily is – she tries a range of new jobs to help pay her way which end in inexplicable disaster and her banned from certain areas of life which annoys her slightly as she wants to help, but then finds her calling which heavily involves her would be love Nate, only he doesn't always know it. The pair of them can be as stubborn as each other, have misunderstandings which take a while to be ironed out. Emily charms nearly everyone in the community, even Polly the dog who is attracted to Nate and creates disaster for poor Emily. I would have liked to see a little more of Wordsworth the cat after the early mentions, but that's a minor point in this fun read which I can't wait to reread! 

Find out more on Kristin's website (the logo at the top of her site is gorgeously colourful!) 

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