Love Walked In
by Marisa de los Santos
307 pages
I got this book on a whim when I was getting a few other books from Barnes and Noble dot com during their after Christmas sale. I just can't pass up books for under $4! As I was browsing for more bargains, I came upon this book. I vaguely remembered hearing something about it and it got good reviews on B&N so, I decided to give it a shot. Plus, it could count towards my WBC (Love in the title)!
The two main characters are Cornelia (a 31 year old cafe manager) and Clare (an eleven year old girl), who alternate telling their part of the story each chapter. One day a man, Martin, walks into Cornelia's cafe and she gets swept into a relationship with him. He's handsome and suave, and always seems to say the right thing, but you can tell that something just isn't there between them. Clare's story begins at her home where she lives with her single mother who begins doing peculiar things like buy sets of towels in every color imaginable, or get tons of cookbooks and cook in the middle of the night only to throw it all out before even tasting it, and then she begins to forget that Clare is even there, forcing Clare to take care of herself and hide the fact that her mother is ill.
Clare and Cornelia's world collide when Martin one day shows up at the cafe with Clare. Clare's mother, Viviana, has disappeared leaving Clare with no choice but to go to her father, Martin. When Clare begins sobbing in the cafe, Cornelia runs to her and embraces her, even though they have never met and she didn't even know that Clare existed. The two of them form an unbreakable bond, even when things around both of them begin falling apart.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt like I knew Clare and Cornelia, and a couple of the secondary characters and by the middle of the book, I was rooting for their happy ending. Martin was also so real to me because he had this HUGE flaw (absolutely horrible father, he just couldn't open up emotionally) but there Cornelia was, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and help him to help his daughter for as long as she could. Hello!!...welcome to my past relationships. A guy that seems pretty perfect but has some huge flaw, but I swear, he has such potential to be a really great person!!! Every time Martin came into a scene, I would sit there shaking my head because I know that I would have given this guy the benefit of every doubt. And I was! Because I sat there the entire time just hoping and praying that he would turn into a great father and him and Cornelia could have a baby and he'd be a great dad! haha. Oh, aren't I just the eternal optimist?!
Anyway, though this book did have a happy ending that came together maybe a little too perfect, the characters were real and likable and I felt happy right along with them. I'm passing this one to my mom this weekend!
8.75 out of 10 stars
The two main characters are Cornelia (a 31 year old cafe manager) and Clare (an eleven year old girl), who alternate telling their part of the story each chapter. One day a man, Martin, walks into Cornelia's cafe and she gets swept into a relationship with him. He's handsome and suave, and always seems to say the right thing, but you can tell that something just isn't there between them. Clare's story begins at her home where she lives with her single mother who begins doing peculiar things like buy sets of towels in every color imaginable, or get tons of cookbooks and cook in the middle of the night only to throw it all out before even tasting it, and then she begins to forget that Clare is even there, forcing Clare to take care of herself and hide the fact that her mother is ill.
Clare and Cornelia's world collide when Martin one day shows up at the cafe with Clare. Clare's mother, Viviana, has disappeared leaving Clare with no choice but to go to her father, Martin. When Clare begins sobbing in the cafe, Cornelia runs to her and embraces her, even though they have never met and she didn't even know that Clare existed. The two of them form an unbreakable bond, even when things around both of them begin falling apart.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt like I knew Clare and Cornelia, and a couple of the secondary characters and by the middle of the book, I was rooting for their happy ending. Martin was also so real to me because he had this HUGE flaw (absolutely horrible father, he just couldn't open up emotionally) but there Cornelia was, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and help him to help his daughter for as long as she could. Hello!!...welcome to my past relationships. A guy that seems pretty perfect but has some huge flaw, but I swear, he has such potential to be a really great person!!! Every time Martin came into a scene, I would sit there shaking my head because I know that I would have given this guy the benefit of every doubt. And I was! Because I sat there the entire time just hoping and praying that he would turn into a great father and him and Cornelia could have a baby and he'd be a great dad! haha. Oh, aren't I just the eternal optimist?!
Anyway, though this book did have a happy ending that came together maybe a little too perfect, the characters were real and likable and I felt happy right along with them. I'm passing this one to my mom this weekend!
8.75 out of 10 stars
