Book Reviews

Book Blurb

Return to small-town Sylvan in Jan Irving's bestselling series—reimagined and re-edited with an all-new bonus novella.

The small Western town of Sylvan is a place for new beginnings for those who won’t settle for anything less than true love. These sweet tales of slow-simmering romance and the old-fashioned values of commitment and pulling together when times get tough prove that sometimes the best matches are also the most unexpected.

With the help of a storm, a washed-up Olympic swimmer and a carpenter cracking under the strain of caring for his Alzheimer’s-affected father learn that opposites sometimes really do attract. 

A likable cowboy called Happy Nate is determined to help a mute boy speak again—and to help his father move beyond the repression of the Mennonite community to find the love he deserves.

When a hard-partying cowboy is suddenly saddled with a surprise baby, he’s at his wit’s end. Luckily the local doctor is available to help, and if the two men can find the courage to accept themselves and step into a new life, they might just make a real family. They’ll need to lend each other strength when an unspeakable tragedy strikes—and when it’s time to pick up the pieces.

 

Book Review

Romance can be a beautiful thing, and this collection contains four novellas filled with slow-burn, old-fashioned love stories that made me smile. With a setting like Sylvan, a small Western town where people still know their neighbors – and most of each other’s business – the stories are all just a little connected by characters making short cameo appearances. Some of the matches are surprises, some of them take a while to get going, but all of them are very sweet.

Mal is a washed-up Olympic swimmer at twenty-three and he returns to Sylvan mostly because he has nowhere else to go and no clue what to do with the rest of his life. His grandmother raised him there, and he is looking forward to spending time with her – only to find out she has died and left him her cabin next to a small lake. Mal has a hard time dealing with it and is very tempted to return to partying with a different man every night, but then he meets quiet carpenter Leif from across the lake. Leif could not be more different from Mal, and yet, as they get to know each other, they discover they have some things in common as well.

Luke used to be a footloose cowboy who liked to party and enjoyed one-night stands – but those days are long behind him when he makes his way to the small town of Sylvan. One of his brief encounters has left him with a baby – literally – and two weeks later, Luke is at his wits’ end. The local doctor, Morgan, is happy to help, not least because he is attracted to Luke, never mind that Luke is straight. But as Luke begins to work for Morgan, repairing his cabin and stables, they get to know each other and start to figure out that Morgan may be the only one interested in more than friendship.
 
Nate is a cowboy who loves horses, wants a family, but can see no way of having one. So when he sees Sam, the son of the man who cooks for all the cowboys where Nate works, being bullied, he helps. But Sam’s father, Aaron, is from a Mennonite community and doesn’t quite know what to do – not about the bullying and not about the fact that Sam has not spoken since his mother died and Aaron decided to leave the only home they had known. Turns out that Aaron and Nate have more in common than either of them thought and that, together, they can figure out a way to help Sam.

The final story is called ‘Luke’s Baby’ – and I have to say it was a bit of a shock. After all the other sweet and gentle love stories with only a little drama, the first few pages threw me for a loop. It is set a few months after Nate and Aaron have moved in together, and focuses on the second couple from this collection, Morgan, Luke, and Luke’s daughter Jessica. It appears that Doc Morgan has inherited quite a lot of money from his father, and Luke has had trouble accepting that. Luke’s pride got in the way, then a few misunderstandings happened, and it becomes clear that they have not had it easy. Then the author drops a devastating bombshell on their little family and I wasn’t sure I’d survive. Seriously! My heart about stopped. Talk about testing a couple’s love – and so much more. Definitely the most hard-earned happy ending in the whole bundle!

If you like cowboys and the men who fall in love with them, if you enjoy sweet stories about unusual lovers finding each other, and if you’re looking for a collection of reads that focus on happy endings, no matter how far off they seem to be initially, then you will probably like these novellas.

 

 

 

 

DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been provided by Dreamspinner Press for the purpose of a review.

Additional Information

Format	ebook and print
Length	Collection/ 4 novellas, 256 pages/79384 words
Heat Level
Publication Date	24-August-2016
Price	$6.99 ebook, $16.99 paperback, $16.99 bundle
Buy Link	https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/sylvan-by-jan-irving-7373-b