Syd Parker

As a whole, Love's Abiding Spirit is one of the sweetest and most sincere books I've read in a while. There are two wonderful main characters and a genuine love between them that grows as the novel moves along at a very nice pace. I can't exactly put my finger on what makes me hesitate to give it four stars, though I will say there are a lot of grammatical errors, typos and misuse of words (i.e. the constant use of "through" instead of "threw.") And for some reason it also got on my nerves that the word smirk must have appeared at least three dozen times, possibly four dozen. Still, I did not delete it from my Kindle after I was through, which is usually a good sign! :)… (mais)

I enjoyed Syd Parker's Love's Abiding Spirit enough to want to read more of her novels, but Someone Like You made me experience her writing in a much more emotional, satisfying way. Here Parker has written something very sweet and tender, if at times also a bit frustrating.

Of course it helps a lot that Someone Like You is _supposed_ to be maddening because one of the book's main themes is: just because you love someone and she loves you back doesn't mean everything is going to work out. You can know why a relationship broke apart, you can want with every bit of your heart to fix it all up and be back together...but that doesn't make it so.

THAT is why I love this book...in a less skilled writer's hands this book could have just been a sappy short story with everything neatly resolved in less than an hour's read. Instead, Syd Parker infuses Someone Like You with a healthy, if often sad, dose of reality as the reader travels along the road of ups and downs, downs and up that make up Aspen and Lex's relationship.

Someone Like You is a lovely, often emotionally challenging, read and definitely worth every penny.… (mais)