A review by tessisreading2
Keepsake by Sarina Bowen

3.0

More of a slice-of-life romantic novel than a romance in some senses (

Spoiler

a large portion of the latter part of the book is the heroine getting much-needed psychiatric help in Boston while the hero waits for her up in Vermont

) but given that the slice of life is of a working orchard and cidery in Vermont and the characters are all wonderful and well-drawn, I had no complaints. I appreciated that the heroine's trauma felt "real" without being stereotypical or ridiculously violent, and also that it wasn't aggressively hidden from the reader - by the time the heroine discusses it with others, the reader already has a pretty good idea of what it was. I hate it when books make violent trauma the "mystery" of the plot and a driver to keep you reading - I'm here for the romance, not the details of the awful backstory. I really liked both hero and heroine, although I kind of wished there were more of the hero's journey towards the end - it really turned into the heroine's book at that point.