Book Review: Suddenly Forever by Teresa Tysinger

SUDDENLY FOREVER
SERIES: Laurel Cove Romance #2
GENRE: Inspirational Contemporary Romance
PUBLISHER: Good Day Publishing
RELEASE DATE: October 6, 2020
PAGES: 362

On the outskirts of Laurel Cove, North Carolina sits a quiet lake tucked into gentle mountains carpeted with the brilliant colors of autumn. Grief binds the lake’s only residents into an unlikely family, where old and new love build a bridge between loss and hope.

For years, best-selling author Cora Bradford has worked tirelessly to tread the unrelenting waves of grief in solitude. That is until a new neighbor moves in down the road and threatens to disrupt what she’s carefully preserved of the life she once knew. Will God ever answer her prayer for peace and calmer waters?

Following a scandal, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Luke Bassett escapes to the one place in the world he’s ever experienced peace—his mother’s cabin on the lake where he spent childhood summers. But the memory of her and the mistakes he made are hardly peaceful. To make matters worse, he gets off to a rocky start with his bitter, but breathtakingly beautiful, neighbor. Was running away from the life he’s always known the biggest mistake of all, or the beginning of something he never knew he wanted?

Spunky, opinionated, and recently widowed Ina McLean is alone for the first time in over ninety years. When Cora and Luke come together to care for their only other neighbor, Ina’s belief in God’s goodness through life’s ups and downs works to restore their hope in learning to live—and love—again.

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“Grief was like a shipwreck, surrounding you with a chaos of debris on unrelenting waves.”

Oh wow. Where do I even begin to put my feelings about this book into words? Suddenly Forever took me through a whole gamut of emotions & reactions – from laughing out loud at 93-year-old Miss Ina’s interactions with swoony Luke to melting & grinning over swoony Luke’s interactions with decidedly-more-his-age Cora, to grieving with these characters over some tough losses in the recent past & present and wiping away a few sweet tears at touching reminders of God’s faithfulness.

I must confess – When I turned the last page, I didn’t want to be done yet; I just wanted to stay in this world with these characters and wrap myself up in it. The lake setting during autumn in a small North Carolina mountain community is pretty much my ideal happy place, and I fell in love with Luke, Cora, and Ina & their unexpected friendship that was forged in shared grief and became something even greater. The author’s poetic descriptions of the area, new romance, and grief itself just settled into my reader heart like a warm hug and held me totally captivated by the story.

And oh goodness. Luke’s natural flirtatious instinct is yummy on its own (and completely endearing when he turns it on feisty Miss Ina) but when he really sets his mind to flirting and falling in love with Cora?? Heaven help me. There was one moment in particular when I wanted to purse whomp him, but let’s face it, all he’d have to actually do is grin at me with an ounce of his charm in place and I’d forget why I wanted to purse whomp him anyway.

Bottom Line: In Suddenly Forever, Teresa Tysinger takes readers on a poignant journey through grief in its various manifestations & stages. And while she tackles it authentically, and at times with a rawness that made me cry, she also manages to keep the story from becoming too heavy. Luke’s aforementioned flirting and Miss Ina’s sass have a lot to do with that, but they also don’t take away from the honest look at deep loss – achieving just the right balance between meaningful and fun. Likewise, Luke and Cora’s romance is sweet and swoony (and so are their kisses), and I would easily spend a whole other book’s worth of time (or more) with these characters. One of my fave reads of 2021 for sure!

(I voluntarily reviewed a copy of this book which I read via Kindle Unlimited. All views expressed are only my honest opinion.)

My Rating: 5 stars / fantastic!!

KissingBook Level: 4 / keep a fan and fainting couch handy!

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Also available to read for FREE with Kindle Unlimited

Teresa Tysinger is an author of Southern contemporary romance inspired by grace. She writes on the fringes of being a wife, mom, and full-time communications professional. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, the Association for Women in Communications, and the Religion Communicators Council. She’s an introverted Enneagram 4 (if you know, you know) and loves coffee, traveling, and almost every genre of music. Born in Hawaii, raised in Florida, and educated in North Carolina, she now resides in Texas with her husband, daughter, and dog.

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