I wanted to like this book better than I did. It was about a woman raising her niece while running a boarding house in the 1920s. A hobo comes to stay. Sounds good but it really just missed somehow. Turns out the man is her dead sister's husband who never came home from WWI. Why? He was too scared he was hideously ugly after having acid scar one cheek. Just that. Not half his face and losing an eye or having his legs blown off or something, just the fleshy part of one cheek. I'm like, for that you let your wife of 5 months think you were dead? I might have bought it if it had been a shell shock deal but didn't seem to be. Plus everyone basically knew from the beginning who he was so there was no build up of 'who is this mysterious man?'

Somehow the writing just stayed on the surface and after all the pages were over, I wondered how so little story could fill up so many pages. Motivations just seemed not too clear all around. Somehow the hero and heroine end up in love but I sure didn't see it happen.

This was my first try at this author and I probably won't give her another try. This was one time that I went against my tried and true rule of never buying an author before I tried a book from the library first. There's a reason that's my modus operandi. ( )

is a very good book to read and is touching story of a woman trying her best to raise her neice ( )

is a very good book to read and is touching story of a woman trying her best to raise her neice ( )

Fast-paced story of Rachel caring for her dysfunctional family after her sister's childbirth death during World War I. Her mother has become a shut-in because she could not save her daughter; her uncle is a drunk and her little niece is wild and contrary. The arrival of an ill stranger changes everything.

Combination history and romance makes for a quick, easy read. ( )