Disclosure: I received this book to review. The post contains affiliate links. The opinions shared here are 100% mine.

My husband and I lost a baby.

Although my hormone levels and general symptoms indicated otherwise, I was told that I had never really been pregnant. The nurse practitioner originally told us that  it was just a “chemical pregnancy” which I would never have known about it I hadn’t taken a POAS test.    Did that make it easier?  No way.   That’s a different post for a different day.  That experience came rushing back to me when I read Return to Love.

In Return to Love, I felt an immediate connection to April Abercrombie.  Her baby was stillborn and whisked away before she could even feel like a mom.  Although April’s doctor and family encouraged her to move on with her life, she just didn’t have the closure needed to do that.  Hale comes home from active duty to try to nurse his wife back to life.  As they both reach inside to overcome their pain, they have to choose if they’re going to get through that pain together.   I really, really liked the characters in this book.  Author Kathleen Shoop made April and Hale feel like people I’d know from church.  The situations they encountered were very realistic and normal.  Although this is the second book in the Endless Love series, it definitely can serve as a standalone novel.

It was interesting that some things have changed since the 1970’s in the obstetrics field, yet there are still some expectations of new moms.   Move on?  Try to forget?  Just have more babies?  Those suggestions aren’t always helpful for someone who has experienced the loss of a baby.  A miscarriage isn’t just losing a baby; it’s losing the hopes and dreams of that little one.  It’s missing out on all those first moments that you imagine for months.  April had to deal with so many questions on her own while everyone else seemed to push away her concerns.  I was glad that she had at least one really good friend (Martha) who allowed April to work things out on her own with some gentle nudges.  As it was with my husband and me, April and Hale had to decide if they would stop the story of their lives at this point, or decide to turn the page and finish the chapter.   Kathleen Shoop did a great job of keeping the story’s flow going.  Just when I thought I was getting a tad bored with the plot, it would pick right up.

Buy the book from…….

Amazon.com    Amazon.co.uk    Barnes and Noble

About the Author

A Language Arts Coach with a Ph.D. in Reading Education, Kathleen lives in Oakmont, Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Kathleen has also written Love and Other Subjects, award winning After the Fog and her debut novel, The Last Letter, garnered multiple awards in 2011. The author’s stories have also appeared in several of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Follow the Author…..

Website   Facebook   Twitter   Pinterest   Google+   Goodreads

Also Available
Endless Love series. Book one, Home Again

Buy the book from…….

Amazon.com    Amazon.co.uk    Barnes and Noble

Book Tour Dates

I received this book to review through Beck Valley Books Book Tours, all the opinions above are 100% my own.