After a devastating heartbreak three years ago, genealogist and historical village owner Nora Bradford has decided that burying her nose in her work and her books is far safer than romance in the here and now.
Unlike Nora, former Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient John Lawson is a modern-day man, usually 100 percent focused on the present. But when he’s diagnosed with an inherited condition, he’s forced to dig into the secrets of his past and his adoption as an infant, enlisting Nora to help him uncover the identity of his birth mother.
The more time they spend together, the more this pair of opposites suspects they just might be a perfect match. However, John’s already dating someone and Nora’s not sure she’s ready to trade her crushes on fictional heroes for the risks of a real relationship. Finding the answers they’re seeking will test the limits of their identity, their faith, and their devotion to one another.
Wow! I Wade’s newest series starts off with a roller coaster of romance and emotion! I love a sweet feel-good romance, and I thought that’s what True to You was, but it’s so, so much more.
It starts off that way, though. Although I’ve loved her other books and was fascinated with the premise of this one, I was a bit skeptical after I started to read. A few of the names sounded a bit cheesy, and it began like a straightforward love story.
It’s not, though. It really is so much more.
Wade layers the story with piece after piece of well-timed drama. It’s so much more than the premise implies – genealogist sparking with a hunky former SEAL. They both have full and complete backstories that, while a bit fantastic, play totally and completely into their present and affect any possible future they might have together. The timing of events is impeccable, as one complication rolls right into another, until by the end the story is so deep and theological that you’ll need to surface for air.
I do enjoy a good romantic story, but I prefer for them to have at least one additional angle to them, for the very reason that Nora realizes in this book: fictional men are perfect, and real ones are not. When we read sweet stories of romantic, hunky, perfect men, we can start to expect to find our own Adolphus in real life, and that won’t ever happen. Nobody’s perfect.
Wade makes that case perfectly through Nora in True to You without doing in her own book – partly because this isn’t just a romance, but partly because, in un-romance-book style, it’s full of theological revelations to back all that up. A reader will get a whole sermon in fun, fictional style without ever realizing it. The depth that Wade writes into this story was very unexpected, and yet it’s what makes the book so completely perfect: it has the fun of a traditional romance and the depth of a novel. It’s the best of both worlds!
The problems Nora and John face are much, much deeper than the usual does he like me?, and while that depth is weighty, Nora’s quirky sisters add fun to every problem. Not that they take away from the seriousness of it, but their relationships and personalities lend new angles and subtle humor to each interaction with their sister, lightening the mood and keeping the reader from crying into her tea alongside Nora.
Without Willow and Britt, and even their Eyore-ish Grandmother, that last bit could happen. Wade writes with the experience, professionalism, and drama of Karen Kingsbury, and who can read any of her stories without needing a full box of tissues? Wade hits just the right notes of love, drama, and faith in True to You, however – making it a definite winner. I can’t wait to revisit the Bradford sisters in the sequel.
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