Finding You
By Jo Watson
Publisher: Forever
Release Date: May 2, 2017
Reviewed by Maria Lokken



It wouldn’t surprise me if most readers didn’t equate a quest to find one’s birth parents with a romantic journey, but they’d be wrong. Ms. Watson uniquely tackles the subject of adoption while delivering a quirky, romantic trip to an Island in the Mediterranean.
In Finding You,
our heroine, Jane Smith, wakes on her 25th birthday to an unsettling
feeling she can’t place. But she follows that emotion out the door and straight
to a travel agent’s office where she books a ticket to Santorini, Greece. Jane
is going to find her birth father.
In its essence, this isn’t so much a destination novel as
what the destination does for the main character, Jane Smith. Yes, that’s her
name, I’m not making it up, the author already did. Jane has spent a lifetime
pushing away her adoptive family who she feels is better, prettier, and
livelier than she is. Through her search to find her father she stumbles into a
romance, and equally important, she discovers who she really is.
The author loosely works within the ‘ugly-duckling’ trope.
The heroine’s ditzy, apologetic, I’m-not-beautiful mantra became tiresome until
I realized the author had a plan. The self-deprecation was finally dropped and
our heroine transforms into woman who is self-aware and confident.
As for the hero, well, I have a litmus test he must
pass. Above all things, he needs to be a
man who can say the right thing when everything around him is going to hell.
Particularly when he’s attempting to win back the heroine in the middle of the
third act after he’s done some unspeakably stupid thing. So, I judge.
Don’t we all? In this novel, Dimitri, the hero, gets high marks from
this reader on how to win back the woman he loves.
The journey Jane Smith travels isn’t a simple one. There’s
heartbreak, but there’s also a great deal of growing, and this is one heroine
that needed a serious adjustment. But that’s what keeps us romance readers
going, how our heroes and heroines change and grow and love.
This
novel takes place in the romantic country of Greece. So for a few minutes I’ll
ask you to forget the fact that you may have a family and twelve children, or a
job you can’t leave. Instead, just let your mind wander and imagine a fortune
teller has told you your one true love is out there waiting for you. Where in
the world would you want to find him?
Sounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteladbookfan
It is, ladbookfan!
DeleteInteresting review. Where in the world would I want to find my true love? I'm going to say Scotland or Ireland.
ReplyDeletePamela - those are two countries I've never been to - but have always wanted to see. In my mind they are wonderful places for romance.
DeleteThanks, Pamela. I'm with Maria in wanting to see both those countries.
Delete