Happily Letter After

Hilarious mishaps, unbelievable fate, and the Great Dane combine into a light-hearted romance.

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1. HAPPILY LETTER AFTER by Vi Keeland

SYNOPSIS

My love story all started with a letter. Only it wasn’t from the man I’d eventually fall in love with. It was from his daughter. A sweet little girl named Birdie Maxwell who’d written to the magazine that I worked for.

You see, once a year my employer fulfilled a few wishes for readers. Only that column didn’t start up again for months. So I fulfilled some of her wishes myself. It was harmless… so I thought. Until one day I took things too far.

While anonymously granting yet another of Birdie’s wishes, I got a look at her father. Her devastatingly handsome, single dad father. I should have stopped playing fairy godmother then. I should have left well enough alone. But I just couldn’t help myself. I had a connection to this girl. One that had me acting irrationally.

Like when I showed up on their doorstep.

BOOK REVIEW

When two people are meant to be together, God makes it happen.

A so beloved Keeland/Ward author-duo made a comeback with a light-hearted romance, where a concept of ‘fate’ played a central role.

On a side note here: Fate is the apparently inexorable march of events, particularly as experienced by an individual, and including the element of necessity. Fate, however, is to all appearances more unavoidable than unexpected. Though in Happily Letter After, fate turned out to be both.

I had some mixed feelings about the book. On the one hand, it felt wholesome and cute (mostly because of Sebastian’s daughter rather than the couple itself). But on the other hand, the entire plot was way out there. It went beyond the notion of soulmates and reached the point of ‘hard to believe’.

Sebastian was definitely not the insensitive jerk he appeared to be during our initial meeting. He had a vulnerable side. I could see that now. He was a man who wanted to protect his daughter from having to experience another tragedy.

Sebastian Maxwell was one of the worst portrayals of a grumpy hero, sorry not sorry. But he did do his best but kind of failed at being a good enough single parent to his adorable daughter.

Now, Birdie overshadowed her indecisive father. Her connection with Sadie was such a wonderful and inspiring thing to witness.

“I’m playing tug-of-war, only I have the rope wrapped around my hand really tight because I’ve been afraid to let go for so long. But now my circulation is getting cut off. And if I don’t just let go of the damn thing, I’m going to cause more damage than I would if I just finally let go.”

Sadie Bisset was a self-assured and quirky heroine with a big and loving heart that made it very easy to fall in love with her. Observing her in action while building a relationship with both Seb and Birdie was an utter delight.

The chemistry between Sadie and Sebastian was definitely there. But it was more lust-driven rather than love-driven, I would argue. The sex scenes were OK. What hurt my reading experience the most though, was the absence of quality banter. That was just a huge NO for me…

It’s not like I didn’t like the book, but there were parts I found it difficult to concentrate on and consume as some necessary information for further plot/character development. The letters exchange between Seb’s daughter and Sadie in the very beginning that was supposed to be endearing just seemed to drag (but maybe, that was just a ‘me’ problem). And then, a quite abrupt change from an embarrassingly comical scene to the one covering a number of very serious issues gave me a major whiplash.

Although I didn’t like the over the top plot, as well as inconsistent writing, I did appreciate the authors’ take on family life. All the talks about the risks involved in change and the addition of a new member to a flawed yet already established family felt realistic and very insightful. I absolutely loved Sadie’s dad and his thoughts about love and destiny and life in general.

Being an immense dog-lover and owner of a beautiful Siberian Husky, I’m always appreciative of dogs in my romances. So, needless to say, the Great Dane was a nice side-character who oftentimes drove the confusing plot and thus, added some points.

Overall, Happily Letter After was not a bad book but definitely not the best one by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward.