Sincerely Yours: Book Review + Giveaway w/ Celebrate Lit

Book:  Sincerely Yours

Author: Kari Trumbo

Genre: Contemporary Christian Romance

Release Date: July 26, 2019

What if you fell in love with a man you’d never met?

When marketing coordinator Liberty Dryden tries to help radio station owner and DJ Tom Higgs attract new listeners and advertisers, she hits a roadblock.
He refuses to meet with her, and she has no idea why.

Tom has an affliction that’s plagued him his whole life—a painfully crippling stutter. On air, he can speak to thousands, but in person, he stumbles to find every word.

After a woman stalked him, he’s convinced his fame and fortune are all women want. He’s unable to tell Liberty why he won’t meet in person. How could he explain his unfounded doubts and his own issues?

Without her, disaster looms for his station. But, meeting her might prove he’s right about women.

Liberty takes matters into her own hands and calls into his radio show… using an assumed name. She never expects to hit it off with him. If she reveals her secret, it will put her new relationship and her job at risk.

Click here to get your copy!

My thoughts

I devoured this book faster than most. I found the writing engaging. I loved the characters. It had such a You’ve Got Mail feel, it was pure throwback nostalgia for me, while also remaining perfectly contemporary. That aspect of the novel, I truly enjoyed. I also admired how well Kari portrayed characters with disabilities. Tom was authentic and his disability was handled so well. It was one of the highlights for me, to see characters with disabilities represented.

The message throughout – that we should never attempt to fight through our problems alone, that we shouldn’t isolate ourselves because there are so many people around us that love us and care for us, was such a great and timely message.

The rest of this review contains mild spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want spoilers. You’ve been warned.

I typically refrain from posting negative reviews of books on my blog. Mostly because I like to look for the positive in everything I read. Indeed there were a lot of positive things about this story. But while I enjoyed the majority of the story, the ending left me completely unsatisfied. I expected so much more.

The spirituality behind the message that we don’t have to fight our problems alone was hardly touched upon. The ending of the novel felt incredibly rushed. Instead of taking a chapter to close out some of the key relationships that had been broken, that did not happen and left me irritated.

The way Liberty treated her friends was frustrating. I completely understood why she did the things she did. I see it happen in real life. But this is a story with a happy ending. I expected there to be some friendship closure in the form of a closing scene with happy tears – or even angry tears. I’d have been okay with that. But a one sentence attempt doesn’t cut it for me at all.

As this was a Christian Fiction novel, I kept waiting for some spiritual closure to come for Liberty and for me as the reader – to affirm the lesson that we are not an island, that we need Jesus in our lives because he is the giver of life, that we need other Christians in our lives to help us! That would have sold this book to me as a must-read %100.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. What could have been a beautiful message of God’s love and faithfulness was left out completely.

More from Kari

Thank you all so much for joining me on my blog tour! I’m happy to be here. I write an eclectic mix of historical (western) and contemporary (western and not) romance, sometimes with a hint of suspense woven in. I can’t help it; my education is a degree in psychology with a sociology minor focusing on criminality and deviance… the suspense just happens whether I plan it or not.

I am one of those writers who usually gets a story idea and then writes it. I usually don’t write a book just because I “should”. That being said, this is one of those books where readers asked for it and I delivered. The first story in the series is in a popular book bundle Betwixt Two Hearts. In my story, the secondary character Liberty Dryden (named after one of my readers) is a really fun character, even though she’s only in a few scenes. Readers liked her so much, they wanted her to have her own happily ever after.Then the hard part began.I liked Liberty and I spent a while in her head, trying to figure her out. She was a tough one because Liberty has some hurts. She feels alone and a little used. Don’t we all? But how to write that in a way where the reader wasn’t bored by her self-doubt. Because, let’s face it, it’s cool when a story touches us in a way that is familiar, but if it’s overdone…snooze. I liked the idea that because of their hurts, both characters were shy. So, I gave myself a challenge. These two couldn’t meet until later in the story, but it still had to feel like a romance.

It’s a little like the movie You’ve Got Mail, but different too.

This series was my first big step outside of the western genre (which is funny, because I’m not at all western) and that forced me to think in new ways, which helped with the characters and bringing this story to life.

My favorite poignant quote from Sincerely Yours is, “If I can’t forgive those who ask for it, it ruins my witness. I literally can’t be the love of Jesus if I’m not willing to forgive those who wronged me. Especially if they earnestly ask.”

Thank you for joining me and happy reading!

About the Author

Kari Trumbo is a bestselling author of Christian historical and contemporary romance novels. Her books are known for characters who feel real, settings you could move to, and faith woven between the pages. She makes her home in central Minnesota with her husband of over twenty years, two daughters, two sons, and never enough time.’