Originally Published: 09-01-2020
Falling for You by Krista Lynne Jensen is the second book in a small series. I’ve found the name The Orchard Series on Goodreads but not Amazon.
Book Details
Due the confusion of the series title name, I’m not going to label it under that series name!
But….
The characters in this book are connecting characters from the book, The Orchard. The two main heroines are sisters.
And yes this book does follow after that book, but not in storyline or subject.
There’s also no classification for this novel. Due to the fact that it’s written by an LDS author, you can classify it as an LDS romance. You also call it a Christian romance. I don’t think I’d call it a proper romance, but definitely a clean, sweet, wholesome romance.
It does have LDS content in it as the characters join the LDS church and some of their thinking and plans are to that effect. But there’s not as much LDS content as other authors who write LDS romance.
This book was published in 2014 and has only the one book cover!!
It’s not a long book, only 272 pages but there’s no cliff hanger.
A story that has LDS content is usually a story about the life of a certain character. A regular romance story usually has a plotline, very much like a 3 act play concept.
You’ll find that this story is somewhere in between that LDS content story and a plotline. Yes there’s a problem that needs to be solved but it’s more around a personal dilemma than an external issue.
This story is written in 3rd person with the POV being about Elizabeth.
In my research, I couldn’t find out what the 3rd book might be but I did find that the daughter in this story does eventually get her own story.
Book Summary
This is Elizabeth Embry’s story.
You’ll first Elizabeth in The Orchard. She was a young adult on the cusp of life and jet-setting around the world with her glamorous job in the fashion industry.
As you come to this book, you’ll find that Elizabeth is tired of her life and wants to find a home that she can come home to.
So when her dear friend Nancy gives her the opportunity to possibly run and own a local boutique, she decides to take a look. This small store just happens to be in the small town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
What she finds there is nothing like what she’s used to.
The job is a slower pace that just might fit the slower pace that she’s looking for.
And the family, that owns and operates the B&B that she’s staying in, have welcomed her into their home like she was one of their own.
There’s an immediate attraction between this family’s adult son, Ryan. As a former pilot, he’s come home to help in the B&B and raise his 3 children after the death of his wife.
As Elizabeth and Ryan get to know each other there’s no denying the chemistry between them.
He helps to heal her broken heart and she helps him to see that there can be love again.
So this story is more about the journey that Elizabeth goes thru as she starts a new career and finding a love she didn’t know she would find.
And yes, a chunk of that is the spiritual as well. The story is not about her investigation of the gospel and choosing to become a member. It’s about her using LDS thoughts and ideas to be converted.
And it’s not Ryan that converts her, that ends up being her sister from the previous book. But it’s Ryan that helps to open her heart to something deeper and more meaningful and answers questions that she didn’t even know she had.
And then she goes to Ryan because he’s become her home, her anchor for life.
And yes, the story ends HEA!!
Conclusion
I did enjoy this story but there were aspects of it that drove me crazy.
I liked the storyline, and the characters. I thought both were well-developed and it was a good rendition of what one goes thru as they struggle.
What I didn’t like was the holes that I felt were in the story.
Please know that what I’m taking about is not about the plotline. There were no holes in the plotline. She solved the issue that was presented right at the beginning and finished all the points that were needed to be made.
What I’m talking about is in the author’s thinking as she writing the story. There were gaps in the action of the characters. Okay, I know that not every single thing can be added to a story, but when an action, that is significant to the storyline, is skipped and a reader is left wondering what just happened, then I get frustrated with the story.
All in all, I did enjoy this story. I enjoyed getting to see the transformation that Elizabeth did from the book, The Orchard to this book and how she changed. And despite the gaps that I felt were there, it was a great read.
