Title: Aunt Adeline’s Bequest
Series: A Valentine Rainbow
Author: Amy Rae Durreson
Genre: Historical Romance / Holiday/Valentine
ISBN: 978-1-62798-760-8
Length: Novella (51 pages)
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (February 7th, 2014)
Heat Level: Moderate
Heart Rating: ♥♥♥♥3.5 Hearts
Reviewer: Thommie
Blurb: One snowy evening, wounded WWI veteran Jasper Pritchard arrives at Valentine Nugent’s sweet shop with an unusual request. Jasper’s deceased great-aunt has left him a fortune, along with a box of indiscreet letters she wants returned to the writer, and the only clue is a tin sold in Valentine’s shop over twenty years ago. As they search the shop’s records and uncover a love story from long ago, they find far more than the answer to the mystery.
A part of the “A Valentine Rainbow” set of 14 holiday stories. Get all 14 stories on Feb. 1 when you purchase the set.
Product Link: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=4676
Review: The soldier and the candy man… It does have a ring to it doesn’t it?
Here we have a very sweet and (I don’t believe I’ll say this) cute story. Early twentieth century and Eve of Valentine’s Day find Jasper opening the door to the sweets shop. He’s there on a bequest from his dear and very much dead aunt. Find the writer of some quite indiscreet letters and return them to him. It is quite a feat for Jasper as his flirt with war has left him with numerous scars, but he braves it for his dear aunt. Little did he know that he’d find a treasure in the candy shop.
Valentine has forever wanted to find someone sweet to share his life with as much as they could in the times they lived. A fast romp in the shadows doesn’t do it for him as much as the dream of a man permanently in his life, a man to share his heart as well as his desires. When Jasper enters his store Valentine is fascinated with the mystery of (discretely) finding the writer of those letters with only clue a heart-shaped box with a non-valentine paining on it, but as the evening moves on he finds Jasper just as fascinating and an incredible longing to touch and caress the man overwhelms him. But the scars that blemish Jasper’s body are quite gruesome. Will the man let himself be comforted, and will Valentine manage to see under the scars and into the man himself?
As I said this story is awfully cute, but it is also so much more. I have a thing for broken men, yet Jasper is not all that broken, merely trapped in a disfigured body, something that while bothers him he doesn’t let drag him under its poisonous spell. And as for Valentine, oh man, he was a real candy man. Joyous, sweet, smiling, and caring, he was the perfect half for Jasper. When those two came together frankly I feared there would be some sort of awkwardness, but the author only gifted us with sensuality that overwhelmed everything else.
I liked the mystery of the story as well. What a lovely story that ended up to be. Not sure how credible it is, but I didn’t care one bit while reading it, it made the story even sweeter and the love it was all wrapped up into in the end was perfect for a story in Saint Valentine’s spirit.
For me this is a story for the romantic at heart and if that’s what you’re looking for your holiday read, I don’t hesitate to recommend this at all.