Review: A Little Ray of Sunshine by Lani Diane Rich

The Particulars: Women's fic, indie, available as e-book

The Source: Purchased at Kobo ( just before it was re-issued by the author)

The Grade: C

The Blurb:

Emmy James is not the kind of girl who believes in angels, or fate. So when a lost soul named Jess gets stranded at the convenience store where EJ works the night shift, and claims to be an angel delivered by Fate to fix EJ’s life, EJ calls her a cab and sends her on her way.

Ah, if only it were that easy to shake an angel off your leg…

Jess’s determination to fix EJ’s life culminates in a kidnapping and a cross-country trek at the end of which lies Fletcher, Oregon, and the scorched earth of EJ’s past. There’s Lilly, her narcissistic child-star mother; Danny, the stand-in father who raised her when her mother couldn’t; and Luke, the love of her life, the man who knew her best and loved her anyway. Now it’s up to EJ to heal the damage she left in her wake when she disappeared out of their lives six years ago, and even with an angel on her shoulder, that’s gonna be a tall order…

The Review:

I really like  Lani Diane Rich contemporary romances, yet for some reason I have been bad about re-reading the books I have bought the last couple of years ( fine, a majority of them was KDP Select freebies. But I would have bought them if they had been available at Smashwords!).  

I liked this book.  The theme that ran through this book was dealing with the past. From EJ dealing with her mother, to her confused relationship with Luke, to Jess dealing with her painful past.   It was heart touching to watch EJ as fate nudged her towards returning to Fletcher, despite her wishes.   

And once she returned to Fletcher she had to deal with her past.  I liked the fact that this book had a lot of soul searching in it.  There were harsh words, but I got the feeling that they were necessary harsh words, otherwise everyone would have been stuck in the past.

It was touching to watch as EJ and Luke started to patch up their relationship, and the misunderstandings that arose between them.

I liked this. It was well written, but it was more Womens fic than contemporary romance.  And that is the root of my problem.  I wish the romance subplots had been more intergrated into the story.  And, I wish this had been told in third POV, instead of just EJ’s, since that would have given an additional depth to the story.