Saturday, June 13, 2015

A Love Like Ours - Becky Wade


A Love Like Ours is the third novel in the Porter Family series.  Jake, the third child in the Porter family, returned from the war injured both inside and out.  Unable to process and deal with the losses he suffered in Iraq, losses he holds himself responsible for, Jake has kept everyone at a distance and thrown himself into his work as a horse trainer on Whispering Creek Farms.  Even Lyndie, his best friend from childhood, he tries to keep at arms' length.  Lyndie, however, is determined to find a way in, and she thinks that her chances of helping Jake are tied to helping his horse Silver Leaf, who's been given one more chance to prove himself a winner before being retired.  Can Lyndie help both of them? Can Jake allow Lyndie to take such chances?

I love that this family story continues to be explored through this series; I've read Bo's story, and Ty's story, and even through those was looking forward to finding out more about Jake.  What happened to him in Iraq? Who did he used to be? Could anyone reach him?  This book did a good job of covering his back story - both who he was before the war, what happened to him while he was there, and how he'd been dealing, or not dealing, with the aftermath since he'd been back with his family.  I really enjoyed that the brothers' characters were still part of this story - Ty's wife is still calling him showboat, Meg and Bo are continuing the work they began in their book, and I really enjoyed the side characters as well.  Zoe, in particular, with her "need" for a tall guy and her penchant for dropping sentences mid-thought, really livened up several scenes.  I can't wait to read about Dru, the lone sister in this bunch, and find out more about her story.

There were several story threads that managed to go deep in this romantic novel, dealing with PTSD and the survivor's guilt of watching other men die - it wasn't glossed over.  Jake had a lot of things to work through, and it took a lot of different people showing love in his life in different ways to get him through it.  There was also the story of Lyndie's sister Mollie, who was dealing with cerebral palsy, and what that had meant to Lyndie's family in terms of dedicating time and energy to Mollie while Lyndie was growing up.

Overall, this was a great summer read and I give it 4 stars.  I can't wait for Porter Family #4 to come out, so I can stay connected to this family!

You can find A Love Like Ours HERE.
You can find Becky Wade's site HERE.

I received a digital copy of A Love Like Ours from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

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