J.L. Berg - When You're Ready

Before my husband Ethan died, he wrote me a letter.
For three years, it’s sat unopened in my bedside table... waiting.
As a widow and a single mother, I’d made peace with a quiet life.
After all, I lost the love of my life. No one could ever replace him.
But then, I met Dr. Logan Matthews and everything changed.
He appeared like a white knight, caring for my injured daughter as he slowly mended the pieces of my broken heart.
The letter Ethan left me has three words written on the envelope, When You’re Ready.
So, I guess the question is...
Was I ready... to love again?

Comment: Another book I got after reading some positive comment or reference in some blog or comment box because I added the title to my monthly list and had no idea what it was about before checking the blurb.

In this book we meet Clare, a young widow and mother of a sweet girl, the moment she is taking her child to the doctor. We know Clare is not ready to forget her deceased husband, however the doctor attending her daughter is quite attractive and Clare can't keep her eyes off him nor can she avoid blushing.

Dr Logan Matthews is a doctor for vocation because his father is quite well off but Logan wanted to do something not related to his father's businesses and here he is saving lives or, in this case, helping a young mother with her child. He thinks Clare is attractive but he isn't looking for something serious, and he decides Clare would not want what he wants, but the truth is that noisy friends and circumstances place these two in one another's path and they start seeing the other person is more than a label. 

With time however, they can't help but liking each other and, perhaps, more than liking?

Sadly, I'll have to start right away by saying this novel was cheesy and bland and lacked all the necessary ingredients to make it memorable, namely depth and characterization. I feel the author went for simplicity but what came across to me was flippancy.

The base for this story is pretty basic, Clare is a kind of stay at home mom after the death of her husband Ethan, due to cancer. She has a letter, which he wrote for her to read when she was ready, but after three years, Clare does not feel ready. She picks it up but doesn't open it and I suppose it can be obvious she will open that letter now, after meeting Logan. In fact, with only one look, one moment, she is thinking Logan might be someone she would think of as a possible partner.

Logan is similarly smitten, even though we are told he doesn't want commitment after his ex wife had an affair with a friend because Logan was always busy. I suppose he isn't now, conveniently available for Clare, and they start seeing each other. I mean, this is all fine and predictable and I'd have ignored these things if the story had complexity and proportional doses of drama, angst and charm. However, more than telling instead of showing, we simply must accept all the information the author shares with us regarding Logan and Clare's lives. We don't spend time and pages seeing them interacting before they conclude they like each other, and I feel this would have had to happen for a connection to be established and to be believable.

Of course, money isn't an issue, Logan is wealthy, Clare was left well after the husband's death, she has amazing parents, he not so much but wait, he does reconcile with his mother after she left him with his father, when they divorced and she left with his sister, with whom he has no relationship either. Ok... the drama is coming, but as soon as it comes, quickly it is solved and I felt this would never go past superficial, which ended up being my overall opinion on the story.

Clare and Logan are perfect for each other, their intimacy is amazing and while I can accept it might be boring to have pages and pages of their lives before they met, it was still incredibly ridiculous how quickly they become each other's life after such as recent first look. I understand this is meant to be romantic and all that, but it was as if the author was using basic ideas and developed a juvenile story line, which I cannot accept as more than bland and shallow.

As the pages get turned, everything is predictable and easy to follow, thankfully the book isn't long, we even have Clare's best friend doing some weird things - she will be protagonist of the next story - and then, when I thought surely Clare would be ready to open the letter, after all it seemed as if they had gotten at the point only a marriage proposal was missing (he is perfect for Clare, they had shared I Love Yous, he was an already accepted and perfect father figure for her daughter), the author invents this absurd reason for the famous third act conflict, and I thought simply: come on....

I won't say what, since it's a spoiler, but let it be said, it was really silly indeed. Of course, they go past this, something solved very quickly, without any drama nor sequence of events, we just know it is solved, and there's a HEA, also cutesy-like and predictable.

In a way, this isn't a bad story, I actually think the theme and the ideas have potential, but the execution did not convince me at all.

Grade: 4/10