Lynn Spencer - All About Romance

This book started off strong, and I really wanted to like it more than I did. As the book opens, we're thrown right into the middle of Kate Davis' shock and grief as she tries to figure out life following the sudden death of her husband, Kevin. The Davises are in their late 20s, so she didn't expect Kevin to suddenly drop dead.At first, Kate is lost in grief, but as we watch her grieve, the reader also learns more about Kate's marriage and about the circumstances surrounding his death. It's obvious from Chapter 1 that Kate will be learning a lot about Kevin and facing a lot of truths about their lives that she either didn't know or didn't want to face before. In addition to this journey, Kate also has episodes where she hears Kevin speaking to her. She knows he is dead, but yet she cannot help having these conversations with him.Kate's search for the truth as well as her attempts to resolve why she is hearing Kevin's voice take her to all sorts of places and as she narrates her story, there are some truly poignant moments as we see her grief from the inside. There are some emotional moments in the story that have a lot of power to them. However, the story also has a few weaknesses. For starters, the foreshadowing gets laid on early and with a very heavy hand. And then there are the secrets about Kevin's life that Kate uncovers. Not does she learn some pretty horrible things, but Kate gets to learn that members of her own family have befriended those who secretly betrayed her. It's a twist that makes things even more awful for Kate, but it seemed like an unrealistic one.As with the foreshadowing, the descriptions of Kate and Kevin's marriage lack subtlety. There was a black and white feel to the various flashbacks scattered throughout the book that took away from the story rather than adding to it. I found myself rolling my eyes and wanting to withdraw from the story rather than feeling more invested in it. In the end, I enjoyed parts of the book where Kate as narrator really let the reader into her heart and mind, but there just weren't enough of these for me. It ended up being an okay read rather than a great one.