Review: Dear Julia

Book Title: Dear Julia

Author:  Rae Summers

Publisher: The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

Genre:  Historical (Nostalgia) Romance

Heat Level-  spicy

Length-  76 pages

Reviewer name: Erin

Blurb: Love Letters Series

The discovery of a long-lost love letter in a house she’s redecorating sends Rosalie Stanton on a quest to find its rightful owner.

Since his return from the Great War, William Cavendish has lived as a recluse. His peaceful existence is shattered by the return of the letter that once held all his hopes — and by its bearer, the irrepressible Rosalie, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost love.

As Rosalie sets out to lure William back into society, she realises that in him she might just have met her match.

Review Rating:  5 Lightning Bolts


Review:
Here is a delightful novel that will thrill even the most jaundiced of romance readers, a well-crafted exploration of a man’s deep fears and doubts, and a woman’s ability to lift his sorrow to the realm of joy. The novel is a sure-handed and brilliantly told romance.
“Dear Julia,” Rae Summers’ book begins. In a letter to a young woman named Julia from her mother, we learn that the woman Julia’s one-time admirer William  has sailed to the Great War; and she has married someone else and moved to America.
Five years later, in 1920’s England, we meet a woman named Rosalie whose blue eyes, fresh good looks and open personality are very much like the long-departed Julia. She finds an unopened letter containing a ring in the rubble of a mantelpiece being torn apart in her home. Fired by the mystery,  she tracks down the writer of the letter inside an envelope that bears one word: “Julia.”
From the moment Rosalie and William meet, the sexual tension begins. He is rude; she is stubborn. He turns his back; she returns the next day. Before long, the two are friends--chess opponents and riding partners. But Rosalie finds herself wanting more, even while planning to find a likely match for him among the village’s unmarried girls. “His gaze prickled her skin in a not entirely unpleasant way”. . . .
And author Summers deftly makes sure that even as William begins to lower his stiff reserve, he raises his shield again. “The knot inside him, already pulled taut from long years of habit, tightened painfully.”
 Rosalie’s resemblance to his lost love is the fulcrum on which this book is balanced. Is William attracted to Rosalie because she reminds him of Julia? Will Rosalie herself see that her match-making urge with William is a disguise of her own longing for this handsome, brooding man?
Who seduces whom? You will have to read the book to relish the erotic tautness that builds to a climax as these two people at last come together.
The writing is as airy and bright as Rosalie herself. The characters are drawn with the sure strokes of an accomplished author. The pacing is just right, leading us deeper and deeper into the emotions of two sympathetic people. And the ending is as satisfying as any I’ve read. Dear Julia will wedge itself into your heart.




The Wild Rose Press

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