#writerreadswriting Recommends: The Romance Reader’s Guide to Life

I loved this book.  Flat out.  Had me at hello.

I found it when I was on vacation in Atlanta.  My husband was at a conference, so The Son and I were doing a bookstore-and-ice-cream tour of the city.  Atlanta, BTW, is a fabulous place to do this particular tour.  I had heard about this title on the Smart Podcast Trashy Books podcast, and I opened it in the store to see if I’d like it.

Now, I am very leery of the “narrated by a ghost,” trope.  It’s gotten a bit old, but in this book it’s handled deftly and with humor, as is everything else.  There’s a lot of serious stuff going on, but all is given it’s appropriate emotional weight.  The characters are all engaging, the time-shifting narration flows smoothly, and I _adored_ the passages from the romance book THE PIRATE LOVER.

This was not a proper romance in that it didn’t focus on the progress of the romantic relationship between two characters, but it had an HEA, and was an emotionally satisfying read, and highly, highly entertaining.