Review of The Book Hello My Love by Evy Journey

I loved the premise of Hello My Love by Evy Journey before I started reading it. True friendship turns into true love. Initially, Greg (our hero) only wanted to add another conquest to his list. He sees Elise (our heroine) on television defending the rights of workers. He falls in lust instantly. A month passes and he finally gets to meet Elise at her father’s office at a university. Elise sees him as nothing but a playboy and tries to avoid him when possible. After many dinners at Elise’s parents’ home, Greg makes a comment about a book she was reading, and a friendship grows between the two. Eventually, both feel the attraction toward each other but are unsure how the other will react. A year later, on the Friday night before his impending nuptials to another woman, Lori, Greg and Elise make love. Greg admits his feelings to Elise before falling asleep. He awakes to find her gone the next morning.

Due to Lori’s outlandish reaction to her wedding being called off, Greg decides to wait to contact Elise. Meanwhile, Elise deals with the aftermath of that one night together. It takes him two years to contact her, and everything seems to fall in place despite the new changes in their lives. They do run into some trouble when Elise is involved in an accident. The journey to discovering why the accident accident happened puts a strain on their romantic relationship. Will they make it through the bumps in life or will they part? You’ll have to read to find out.

Now, comes the part of why I gave this book only 2 stars out of 4. As a reader, you should feel whatever the heroine/hero is feeling throughout the book. I did not. The writing was dry and emotion was just not evoked in me. There were a lot of comma splices and misuse of commas throughout the book. Those issues made it harder for me to read the text as written. Another area that bothered me was the abrupt stops. Just a couple of examples of this are the night Greg and Elise consummated their love and when they reunited. Each stops scene stops and you find out later in the book what happened or what was said. I didn’t like the build-up with no resolution until much later and not fully explained even then. Lastly, I didn’t care for the gaps in time with little explanation. I would’ve liked to have seen what each went through for that two year period that they are apart.

Why did I not give it just one star? I loved the premise of the book. Two friends falling in love with the possibility of happily ever after. That’s the reason for reading romance novels after all. Ms. Journey is very intelligent. It comes through in her writing, which is clear and concise. I respect her style of writing, but it could be better. I will be watching and reading her future novels in the hopes that she will improve. She has the ability to tell a story but lacks the emotional response I would hope to find. Hopefully, the next time I read one of her novels, I can give it my full approval. She is definitely an author to watch evolve as her experience increases.