Theresa is a divorced Mom who is in her 30’s, she is happy with life but does get a little lonely so her friend Deena invited her along on holiday. It is when she is on holiday running on the beech that her life is turned upside down. She finds a message in a bottle which when reading reduces her to tears as it is no emotional and well written. Theresa talks the message back to Deena who suggests that she publishes it in her column on the newspaper.
The letter gets published and soon she gets inundated with letters about it. One person in particular shocks her by saying she also found a letter and sends her a copy. Theresa is shocked to discover that it was written by the same person. Garrett is the author and he is writing to his dead wife Catherine. Theresa is intrigued by the letters and soon Deena comes up with the idea of tracking him down and meeting him.
Theresa is persuaded to go and find Garrett after they tracked him down to Wilmington where he owns a diving shop. When she arrives she is pleasantly surprised by Garrett and they end up going sailing together where they strike up a friendship.
Just how far will their friendship go and can Garrett ever get over Catherine and will Theresa ever confess her real reason why she met Garrett?
I had no problems in picking this book up and buying it as I am a big fan of Nicholas Sparks and have loved all of his other books I have read, they are all packed with lovely moving stories, great characters and a lot of emotion, this one was no exception. I must admit this was another book which I was unable to put down though as I just got so into the story and fell in love with all of the characters and the places they visited. The story was very good and although it was quite basic the fact it was full of all this emotion and feeling just made it so interesting and moving to read.
I loved the setting, we were again on the coast in America, the actual town was Wilmington. I have noticed that all of his book seem set around this area and I do kind of like this as it makes it all sound familiar and easy to fall in love with. It was a slow paced town which was so unlike Boston which is where Theresa came from. I don’t think this story would have worked as well if it had been set in another place as we would not have had the same effects and the talks of the ocean and the stillness of the air and peace and quiet. I felt I got a good idea of the town by how it was described and I was able to get a good mental picture of the places they visited.
All of the character were easy to get to know and understand. The lead character of Theresa was good and I felt I got to know a good amount about her and her life so I got a good idea of the way she thought and dealt with things. She was a normal woman who just wanted some company and to love and protect her son. She came across as genuine and wore her heart on her sleeve which made me feel so close to her. Garrett was also a great character and I felt so many different emotions about him. I felt he was a lovely honest man who had big issues. I liked the descriptions we had and he seemed a nice simple man. He did have problems when it came to his dead wife and I felt this was handled in a very good way and not one which was overly sentimental or unrealistic. I felt we had a very good balance. The support characters were also very good and I felt we got to know just enough about them to understand their part in the story but not too much so we lost focus on the main storyline.
There were times in the story when the character of Garrett would go into a dream world and sort of daze and talk of dreams about Catherine and at first I did find it quite hard to separate this part from what was happening in the main story but after this happened a few times I was able to understand it better and I did actually think this was a great addition to the story as it made me understand more and Garrett. These parts were always quite touching and moving and I did have a few times when I did have tears in my eyes from the emotions in them.
I loved this book from start to finish and felt it was very easy to read and understand. The writing style was great and for me the ending was a shock. I thought I had worked out how it was all going to end and hoped it would but I was so far off the mark. I felt it was a lovely ending but one I was not expecting. I think Nicholas Sparks has a good way of seemingly writing a predictable book only to throw a massive unexpected twist and this is one of the things I enjoy about his books. This book has been made into a film but I have not watched it yet and am unsure if I really want to as it will never be a patch on this book with the level of feelings and emotions it has.
The book which I have is the paper back edition and the retail price of this is £7.99. It can be bought for under £5 on Amazon though. I have to say I would be prepared to pay full price for this thought as it is a great book. It was published by Sphere and has a total of 347 pages. At the very end of the book, as with all of the others by this author, we get a chapter from one of his other books, I do quite enjoy this as it gets me interested in other books and wanting to read them too.
I am more than happy to give this book a massive recommendation and the full 5 stars. It has a lovely story with a twist at the end, the characters and places are all easy to get to know and like and it is packed full of emotion and love. Definitely another one to add to me favourites books list!
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