Jewel of the Adriatic by K.M. Daughters
The Wild Rose Press, White Rose
Contemporary Romance, Inspirational
Full length, Sweet
Review by Honeysuckle

Yugoslavian born Maya Lidovic owns Intimate Whispers, a New York based sleepwear company. Determined not to lose her faith in a secular world, she spends her vacations leading tours in Valselo where her parents run an inn.

Colin O'Reilly plays heartthrob, Dr. Brock Stone, on the soap opera Tides Of Tomorrow. Through various setbacks in life he's managed to keep God first. But now he's furious at God for taking his mother. Colin doesn't believe that God has sent the Virgin Mary to earth with messages of hope. He doesn't believe that God cares about the world.

Can a series of apparitions, prophetic dreams and earthy attraction draw these different people together when human frailties obscure the intention of the call that brought them to their destinies?

♥ ♥ ♥

When Colin agrees to accompany his elderly aunt on her annual pilgrimage in place of his mother, who recently died, he does it strictly out of love for her, refusing to allow a crack in his armor against religion.

Maya dearly loved Maggie O’Reilly and is overjoyed to see her son taking his mother’s place on the journey. She finds, however, that he is holding his feelings close, being deliberately disagreeable and not nearly as faithful as he should be. Maya, in her quiet, loving way, begins to chip away at his amour, with or without the benefit of his knowledge.

I so identified with this narrative right from the beginning, having once lost my own faith. The story is credible and well written. Colin O’Reilly is a wonderful hero who makes you sit up and take notice. Not an overly-macho, muscle-bound alpha, but a quiet, thoughtful man, a mental alpha, deep in his soul. I have to give this story 4 books.