Marriage Lessons
Oh, my goodness, Marriage Lessons was amazing! I loved everything about this book. Every. Single. Thing. It was amazing and incredible and everything I look for in a wounded warrior story.
MARRIAGE LESSONS by Katie Allen
Publication Date: Oct. 15, 2018
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Carina Press
Length: 221 pages
Story Rating: 4.5/5
Related: Best Love Stories Ever Written
Review
This the third book in a series of stand alones by Katie Allen. While I didn’t read the first book, the second book, Baking Lessons, told a wonderful tale of the power of healing and leaving your comfort zone. Although there are mentions of past characters this book does read well as a stand alone.
Marriage Lessons gives us the story of Annabelle, a gallery manager, and Louis, the owner of the gallery. What a beautiful story it was. It focused on resiliency and trust. Highlighting the incredible healing power of love.
I enjoyed reading this story, I loved the dynamic between Annabelle and Louis. I loved the way she wasn’t squeamish about his lost limbs. Their relationship wasn’t always easy. Louis struggled to come to terms with the leg he lost in the war and had a bit of a complex about it.
While PTSD has been showing up increasingly in books. Physical injuries are often either ignored, trivialized and romanticized and gloss over. This book did a good job of presenting Louis’ injuries in an honest and compassionate way.
His scars weren’t “beautiful” or “sexy.” The phantom pain he experienced wasn’t endearing.
Related: Baking Lessons by Katie Allen
Annabelle handled his insecurities with incredible acceptance and ease. She didn’t push him for more than he was prepared to give and I thought it was beautiful to see the give and take of their relationship.
So I spent a few hundred words gushing about the book. You’re probably wondering why I only rated it 4.5 stars, aren’t you? You see, Louis had a story that needed to be told. A very big, very painful story and I don’t feel like there was enough attention to it.
The witty banter between our main characters and the honesty their situations were dealt with kept me engaged in the plot.
Anyway, Marriage Lessons was a refreshing read that handled a topic rarely seen in romance novels. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a book that colors just a bit outside the lines.
Related: Wounded Warrior Romance Novels
11 Comments
Jo Linsdell
Might give this series a try. Sounds good.
allthingschristine 🇨🇦 (@allthingstine)
This sounds great! I’m definitely going to be checking it out.
Empress DJ
I haven’t read this author before – I’ll check it out – thanx for the info
Eline @Lovely Audiobooks
This sounds so good! I hadn’t heard of the author before. Shame there are no audiobooks but this might just be worth carving some reading time out for.
jenchaos76
I don’t like reading books like this because they oversimplify something that is quite complex. I divorced twice. Marriage is not that simple. If it were, I would have all the answers by now.
robint60
This sounds like a wonderful story.
Veronica @The Burgeoning Bookshelf
This sounds perfect. I want to read it.
aparna_097
I would love to read this story.
Whispering Stories
Great review. Don’t think this would be a book for me though.
Saturday Nite Reader
I’m a sucker for these types of stories. Great review!
Kati 👩🏻 (@KatisBRR15)
Great review, this one looks and sounds absolutely amazingly fantastic and right up my alley to boot as well. I am really glad you enjoy this book fully, thank you so much for sharing your awesome post and for putting this book on my radar.