Leanne Tyler, It's Always Been You

Title:  It's Always Been You

Author:  Leanne Tyler

Rating:  Three Siren Stones

Genre:  Contemporary Romance

Keywords:  Last Rose Of Summer Rosette, Sweet, Class of 85

Word Count:  13,900     

ISBN E-Book:  d6262

Price:  $2.50

Publisher:  The Wild Rose Press

Buy-Link:  http://www.thewildrosepress.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=175_140&products_id=4586

Reviewer:  Ashleigh


Tagline: Coming back after over 20 years, can the hurt from the past be over looked when your one and only is standing in front of you?

Blurb/Summary:

Class of 85

Retired Staff Sergeant Seth Roberts returns to Summerville to begin the next chapter of his life. To do that, he needs to find out why his girlfriend married another man more than twenty years ago while he served in the Persian Gulf. Their high school reunion is the perfect place to confront Elyse Jordan.

Determined to be a strong role model for her daughters, Professor of Feminist Theory Elyse Jordan never talks about the loss of her only love twenty years ago. Caring for her mother during cancer treatment brings Elyse back to Summerville, the one place she avoided after Seth’s death. When an invitation to her twenty-fifth reunion arrives, she decides to go and reconnect with lost friends. She never imagines she’ll come face-to-face with Seth instead.

Can Seth and Elyse find the thread of love that bound them together or will past tragedies and misunderstandings keep them apart?

Review:

Reading the Class of ’85 series both for fun and review has been a joy to get to read, but something about this one just fell a little short for me.  The situation surrounding both Seth and Elyse is a unique one but not completing uncommon. I was shocked to see that if the feelings they had all those years ago, then how they allowed themselves to be kept apart was odd.  But the coming together at the reunion left me wanting more of something, possibly drama, over the lost time together.  The characters of both Elyse and Seth didn’t readily come to life for me, but took some imagining to really see what the author was wanting them to look like, which in turn I think made the story a little harder to enjoy.

Thinking of the other books in this series, I think if this story would have had more build up to the climax it would have been a much more enjoyable read.  This one will not deter me from finding others in this series to read, but I might hesitate to read other works from Leanne Tyler in the future.  I just thought this book could have had a lot more happening with the potential that it started out with.