”A kiss makes the heart young again and wipes out all the years.” – Rupert Brooke
Title: Un-Expected
Author: Lisa Worrall
Publisher: White Stiletto Press
Pages/Word Count: 122 Pages
Rating: 4 Stars
Blurb: Little Mowbury is a sleepy English village deep in the Cotswolds. The kind of village where you’re only a local if your lineage can be traced back to the dinosaurs. Where you can find everything in the single shop from morning newspapers, to dry-cleaning and getting your shoes mended. And, of course, where everybody knows everybody else’s business. It’s easy to find… you can’t miss it… just ask anyone and they’ll tell you… “It’s left at the crossroads.”
After being dumped on graduation day by the love of his life, Harry Boyd, Micah Lewis returned to the sleepy village he grew up in. Living next door to his mother wasn’t his best idea, granted, but when your heart was broken, there really was no place like home.
Six years later, secure and content in his job as midwife for a local birthing centre, the last person he expected to move into Lilac Cottage across the street from him, was Harry Boyd. Seeing Harry again sends Micah into a tailspin and opens wounds he thought had long since healed. Although Harry himself isn’t the only issue Micah has to face. That would be Harry’s very beautiful and very pregnant partner, Selena.
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Review As the case may sometimes be, the blurb above really gives you a fair synopsis of the book. I might add to that the idea that to give too much more would require slapping a spoiler label on this review. I can, however, say that the plot twists that evolved during this story of rediscovered love kept the action moving along nicely. That, coupled with a truly amusing cast of secondary characters, and you had the makings for a really fine story that kept the audience highly entertained.
Author Lisa Worrall allows for the flaws she giver her characters to be gorgeously displayed on the page. She does not give excuses for the pain that Harry caused Micah those six years before, rather, she gives Micah the opportunity to forgive the horrific home life that caused Harry to walk away so many years before. The two men easily fall back into the rhythm they shared with one another for over three years, and theirs is a passion rekindled yet oddly fresh, with a real sense of exploration and getting to know one another all over again. It was this that I feel saved this novel from falling into boring predictability. Along with that, the village itself and its inhabitants kept Micah on his toes and responded as any small town would, with challenges to Harry’s right to recapture Micah’s heart as well as gentle ribbing for Micah for being such an obvious pushover in taking Harry back so quickly.
Here was a community that would rally behind these lovers in their desperate moment of need and not blink at the fact that they were gay. In fact, author Lisa Worrall allows for the idea that not everyone in the town approves of the boys’ lifestyle, which lends a sense of reality to a rather idealistic setting for her novel. I believe the only glitch in this otherwise amusing love story was the idea that it began so predictably. Thankfully that mantle was quickly removed, but still it took precious page time to move past what seemed like an overworked trope we have seen much too often. In the end, however, Un-Expected by Lisa Worrall delivered the goods to become a delightful love story with a few dramatic twists and turns that did not fail to entertain.
You can buy Un-Expected here:
