Review: Bloom by Julie Lindsey

Bloom
Book 1 in the Honey Creek series
Author: Julie Lindsey
Publisher: Turquoise Morning Press
Format: ebook
Authors website: Link

In a town filled with her past, she never expected to find her future…

Seven years ago Cynthia left Honey Creek with a broken heart. Three years ago Mitchell arrived with one. Now Cynthia’s come home, and these two hardened hearts can’t stop arguing. If they’d take a break long enough to find some common ground, they might be surprised to find love can grow anywhere.

If they’ll let it, love will find a way to Bloom.

There is nothing better than going home and that is exactly what Cynthia feels once she arrives back to Honey Creek. She fled Honey Creek wanting to leave it behind for the big city of New York. She's back home to visit her grandmother and finds that things although she's been gone, things really do remain the same.  She dreading seeing an old love and knows that she'll be reliving the past that they shared, but knows that it must be done.  When she gets the opportunity to meet her grandmother's new next door neighbor Mitchell there is an attraction between the two of them. But things don't get far for them after Mitchell misjudges her.  Since Honey Creek is such a small town they manage to run into each other and before you know if they are spending time together and getting to know each other better.  Soon Cynthia has to decide if she wants to stay in small town Honey Creek or go back to New York where she can hide and not face her true feelings about the direction her life has taken.

Cynthia goes through a wide range of emotions during her visit.  She's bombarded with so many memories from the minute she enters the town and recollects on so many things that the reader is able to get to the root of why she left Honey Creek to begin with.  While interacting with her old friends and an old love, we also get a peek at Cynthia during her teenage years.  What she doesn't know is that Mitchell has heard so much about her because of her popularity.  It takes a bit of time for her to open up to him and he's nothing but patient and understanding during this time.  It is only after facing her past that she is able to move forward and she wants to do that with Mitchell.  Spending time with him and being home makes her realize just what she needs right now. 

I'm giving Bloom a rating of:

My main issue with the book was the very beginning of it.  I had a hard time settling into the storyline because it felt a little slow and it didn't gain my interest right away.  However, after a couple of chapters into the book, I became more interested in it and began to enjoy it.  I loved that the book had a small town country feeling to it and I could visualize everything while I was reading the book.  This made me wish that I was right in Honey Creek myself fishing or enjoying the annual Strawberry festival.  The characters all seemed as if they could be people that are a part of your life and that added to the overall storyline to make it more interesting.   The tension between Cynthia and Mitchell slowly built and I thought it progressed at a perfect pace since Cynthia had so much to deal with.  I enjoyed Bloom and can definitely see myself reading the other books in the series and am looking forward to re-experiencing the old town feeling myself.