Love works in mysterious ways…

Synopsis

Love thy neighbour

Music-loving Kristi Buchanan dresses like a rockstar and dreams of being an artist, but her reality is much less glam – she’s a single mum in her late thirties… and a church cleaner. Her love-life is non-existent, and she can’t even create a dating profile that doesn’t make her life sound deadly dull.

Young church minister Grant Kerr has a pitiful dating history. Whenever women discover what his job is, they run. With a new position in the idyllic Glenbriar parish, he hoped his life was on the up, but the parishioners don’t appreciate an attractive, unmarried man in the pulpit.

Despite not being religious, Kristi forms an unlikely friendship with him. With each other’s help, they construct their ideal dating profiles, only to end up on separate dates in the same place. But the dates don’t go to plan.

Kristi can’t let herself fall for Grant, not when he’s determined to win over the parishioners by finding the perfect match, and she doesn’t fit the description at all. As Grant wrestles with his own feelings, their friendship is tested. Perhaps if they dare put their faith in each other, they might just find the love they’re both seeking.

My review

Being a single mum in her late thirties hasn’t made things easy for Kristi Buchanan. And it doesn’t help that she was a teenager herself when getting pregnant of her first child, nor that she and the father of her children are no longer together. Her dream of having an artistic career, have been long buried, and the only career she is having, is one of being the church cleaner. Even if she is not religious herself, and she enjoys listening to rock music instead of hymns while cleaning, she forms a friendship with the minister of Glenbriar, Grant Kerr. However, her uniqueness and her past make sure that her name is often mentioned with the local gossipers, and many don’t agree with her being the cleaner of a sacred place. But even if the churchgoers are against Kriste, Grant is adamant on keeping Kristi and let her do her job. And that has nothing to do with the fact that despite that they may be like chalk  and cheese, Kristi and Grant are getting closer over dating profiles, (im)perfect matches and perhaps even circumstances that resonate closer to home than they have ever expected…

Glenbriar is one of those places where I am always happy to return. No matter what my current mood is, once I start reading a book of this series, I have a smile on my face. And that has not only to do with the fact that the place is just so welcoming for everyone, but also because the author is able to write wonderful stories, about perhaps impossible romances, showing us how love works in a way we never expected.

I was eager to get to know Kristi better. We know from the previous books in the series that she and Brann have been together when much younger and share two great children together. But that deeper insight of her character we did not have. Until now that this…

And even if my life couldn’t be more different than Kristi’s, I just immediately liked her! She didn’t have an easy time, and at moments she still doesn’t. But no matter what is happening in her life, no matter what people are saying or thinking about her, she won’t change even a little bit. She is who she is, and if people don’t like her, it’s their loss.

She is obviously an amazing mother, she raised both her children well, and I liked it how Kristi is still close with Brann. This is absolutely proof that even if a relationship didn’t work out, there can still be a close friendship, that you can still rely on each other, that there can still be love, even if it’s another kind of love.

But I was also a bit sad… Because Kristi obviously doesn’t show it, but the stings she gets from the people, they hurt. Kristi has an elephant skin, but she also wants people to see who Kristi is for real, and not just base their judgments on her past and the way she looks.

On top it also saddened me that she finds dating so difficult… Men seemingly don’t grasp that she comes with a past, and that even a mother of two needs some romance in her life…

And that is something the minister of Glenbriar, of all people, understands all too well…

Grant is a young minister, and while he knows that in Glenbriar things used to run a certain way, he also wants to put his own mark. And while it would be easy to listen to the people of Glenbiar, with their biased opinions, I liked it how he listens to the worries, but he won’t allow those opinions and voices to cloud his own judgement. He wants to form his own opinions based on what he sees in people and how he learns about people’s characters by himself.

As a man of the Church, it would be expected that Grant would be welcoming everyone and a-everything. But we also know that it is often easier said than done. And with a minister, you would expect him to try to ‘convert’ Kristi or at least show her a different kind of lifestyle.

But not doing so, and truly accepting Kristi for who she is, made me truly like Grant. He is the perfect example of practising what you preach. He sees Kristi, he truly sees Kristi, even in a way that Kristi doesn’t see herself.

On paper (yes, stupid joke made on purpose 😊) Grant and Kristi wouldn’t work. But we see their relationship slowly shift. They become friends, allies, supporters and have each other’s back. They help each other out with creating or updating their dating profiles, they are just there for each other.  With Kristi being able to help Grant with a personal situation she all too easy can relate with, only strengthens their bond even more. And seeing that relationship evolve, grow stronger by the minute, just wonderful and swoon – worthy material.

Margaret Amatt showed us with this story that even the most unlikely matches can work, as long as it based on mutual respect, understanding and honesty. Even a minister and a rock – chick deserve to be loved, to love without any judgements, prejudices or comments from  outsiders. And that is the power of love, bringing two people together that at first sight couldn’t possibly work, but show that it’s the inside, the heart that can make it work for the best.