There’s nothing like a good story about love lost and then love found to get the heart going. SUMMER OF TWO WISHES by Julia London was heart wrenching, yes, heart-wrenching from the very first page. A beautiful story about love and life, London created a masterpiece in this beautiful story. If you are a romance fan of any kind, I highly suggest SUMMER OF TWO WISHES. This is the kind of book that keeps you up at night wondering about the characters until you finally get a chance to go back to the book and dive back into the world.

We’ve seen the story before. A woman is married to her true love, he goes away to war and she gets word that he has died there. Practically dead from grief, she finally manages to find solace in the arms of another man and eventually marries him. Suddenly her first love is back, miraculously returned from the grave. What’s a girl to do when she’s faced with two men, both of whom she loves just as desperately as she needs the air?

Macy has just started to pull her life together. She’s barely crawling out of the dark hole that she’s been hiding under and finding joy in her new husband Wyatt when Finn returns. Now, overjoyed at his return she’s faced with the difficult decision of breaking someone’s heart. Whether it’s Finn or Wyatt, one thing is for sure; her heart is going to be a casualty as well.

If you couldn’t already tell, I loved SUMMER OF TWO WISHES. Admittedly, I was a little reserved about reading the book seeing as how the general premise of the story has been used fairly often. Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked, the movies Pearl Harbor, Three For the Show, and Too Many Husbands all follow the same idea although each puts a great spin on it. I’m pleased to say that my concerns were wasted as London did an excellent job putting her own twists and turns on the idea, creating an intriguing and suspenseful plot.

Usually I’m able to sit here and type fairly quickly, telling you what I loved or didn’t love about a book. In this case, I’m having a hard time figuring out exactly what it was that made the book so great because I got so distracted by the story that I never took the time to stop and think, “Oh yeah, this is good.” Maybe that’s part of what I love. I think that if I really had to pick one thing, it would be the way that London fills the pages with tension. Even something as simple as preparing for a luncheon becomes filled with tension and pulls the reader along. Tension is a wonderful ally to an author if used correctly. It makes the book addicting; it makes you want to read more and keeps you turning the pages. London certainly mastered that. I actually had to convince myself pretty hard that it was not a good idea to take my book to the dinner table with me; I was just that into it.

Another great aspect of SUMMER OF TWO WISHES, just as in many great books, is the characters. London has created characters with a good deal of depth that add layers to the book and give us something to ponder. More than that, however, she has created characters where the reader has to stop and consider who he or she wants the hero to be. That surprised me. I expected a clear-cut idea of who I wanted Macy to end up with, but a quarter of the way through the book I no longer could decide. Both Finn and Wyatt had their good points, but more importantly, each had their flaws. Giving these two guys their own set of flaws really helped to make the story so much more realistic. No longer were we reading a piece of fiction dreamed up in someone’s head. Now we were simply reading a retelling of a story that really happened, waiting for the characters to walk through the front door and begin acting it out.

Fair warning time: SUMMER OF TWO WISHES does have adult themes and adult scenes. I would give it a sensuality rating of four out of five.

SUMMER OF TWO WISHES definitely deserves top marks. The characters were great, the pacing was really nice, and it completely captivated me. It’s not every day that we get a good Romance with its own fair share of suspense and London gave us just that. I would highly recommend this book to any Romance lover and might even suggest that lovers of any sort of Drama book pick this one up as well. The main plot and subplots are intricate and enough to keep you wanting to go back for more long after you’ve turned the last page. ( )

I found this book incredibly compelling. Loving someone new while still grieving the loss of a soul mate feels entirely possible to me. And although in this scenario the love for the second person is genuine, it is intertwined with grief and gratitude and simply not the same as an all-consuming first love. In the second case, she’s come to love someone romantically whom she already loved as a person where the first was an attraction that built into love. The loves are both real, but not the same. The story explores the emotions of the three lovers in the triangle as well as those of a widow who watches things unfold from the side. Their combined stories are riveting. Although I think this book is mischaracterized as a romance (it is much more a traditional novel, with a chick lit flavor), it is very well crafted and I highly recommend it. ( )

Macy Lockhart is devastated when she is informed that her beloved husband, Finn, has been killed while fighting in the war in Iraq. She succumbs to depression and lands herself in a deep, dark hole that she just can’t seem to climb out of. That is until Wyatt comes along and helps her accept the fate that Finn is gone and she must move on with her life - she eventually falls in love with and marries him.

Then the news arrives that Finn is not dead - but alive. Macy is overcome with joy - her one true wish - that the love of her life is not dead but alive has come true... but what about Wyatt? She is now also in love with him. What about their marriage? Which love does she choose?

We’ve all seen this story more than once.. just recently in Jennifer Haymore’s A Hint of Wicked, if you think about it. But this just never gets old. I enjoyed the tug and pull that you feel from both Finn and Wyatt. They are both in love with Macy and you (as the reader) can’t choose one or the other. They are both good men, yet are both flawed, but in the end they each have one goal ... spending the rest of their lives with Macy. I liked these characters so much. They were all fleshed out in a way where you felt their joy and you also felt their pain. I was drawn to Finn - just because I’m gushy about the whole love of your life romanticism but at the same time Wyatt was very appealing - he came into Macy’s life and picked up the pieces making her a very happy woman.

Ms. London’s writing was superb and there were some sensual scenes that were quite beautiful (to say the least). I really liked that the chapters were read through different narrators (Macy, Finn and Wyatt). It really gave you and in depth feel for each character making Macy’s/your decision an even harder one. I was absolutely captivated by this love triangle and I would recommend this to anyone who likes character driven novels - not just romance readers since it did have a dramatic flare to it.

Thanks to Sarah at Pocket Books for allowing me to be part of this blog tour and also for providing my readers a chance to win a copy of Summer of Two Wishes. ( )

I read this for a book club and read it in about 24 hours. Not a typical pick for me but it was a pretty good read.

The story takes place in a small Texas town with Macy receiving shocking news that her first husband, soul mate, Finn was not killed in the war as the military had informed 3 years earlier. What is joyous news soon becomes massive heartbreaks for many since Macy had just remarried 7 months earlier.

Yes, the plot is somewhat like Tom Hanks and Castaway.

This story got me to thinking more in depth about military wives and mothers. The story is believable. I had made my decision on what I wanted Macy to do so I zipped through the story to see what happened. Add horses a dog named Milo and todays life issues and I had a quick easy read. Oh and there was passion alright with some details! ( )

First off, let me say that I think the book description is rather deceptive- this book begins with Finn's return so we never really see Macy dealing with his death or finding solace in Wyatt, so basically the description is the back-story which I found misleading. I had a hard time with this book because I thought London did an excellent job with some aspects of the story but couldn't really feel strongly for Macy herself who I found rather aggravating in her inability to assess what she herself wanted out of her life.

Macy married Finn and their conversations about their past relationship makes it clear that though it was passionate and loving, it was no equal partnership. Macy quits her job to help with the ranch despite her lack of true interest in leading that type of life, then gets stuck trying to keep it above ground when her husband joins the military over her objections and disappears in Afghanistan. When she is forced to sell Finn's horses and to give away his dogs, she faces opposition from Finn's overbearing mother who nonetheless seems to offer no concrete assistance of any kind.

Macy's relationship with Wyatt was equally problematic for me as it seemed to center on her need to be taken care of and his need to have a pretty wife who focused her life on his needs. Again she doesn't work, and they seemingly decide to try for a baby because Wyatt thinks it is time and Macy isn't doing anything else anyway. His actions in the actual narrative paint him as selfish, deceitful, and opportunistic- I'm not sure how any woman could fall in love with Wyatt let alone find it hard to leave him when her "true love" returns from the dead.

Given that I didn't like the main character and couldn't empathize with her dilemma (I think she would have been better off on her own), I obviously didn't much like the book. Nonetheless I was impressed with the way London treated some aspects of Macy's impossible situation. I think she did an excellent job portraying the challenges Macy faced when Finn left her behind to join the military and when she ultimately learned of Finn's death. I appreciated that Finn had to work his way through symptoms of PTSD when he returned, and that he was forced to grow a bit throughout the story.

My husband is an active duty Marine so I did connect with the underlying plot of the story, and with some of the choices and decision that Macy was forced to make. Ultimately though, I would have preferred a heroine who seemed more in control of her life and her decisions; Macy was too much like a ping-pong ball bouncing between Finn and Wyatt for me to enjoy. ( )