Customer Reviews

Forever and Ever

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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This is an amusing and witty book. I like all of Patricia Gaffney's books; they are well-researched and highly-entertaining. Unlike many books of this genre, the characters are not perfect. You want to applaud them on one page and then scold them on the next. Sophie is pretty but her beauty is not emphasized on every page to the point where it interrupts the flow of the story. Unlike heroines in, for example, Judith McNaught's books where the heroines lack irony and you suspect would be tiresome to be around in real life, you would welcome an acquaintance with Sophie by the end of the book after she goes through a positive character transformation. Connor, the hero, is also unlike most "rugged and handsome but loner" heroes with a lot of money that you find in other romance books. He's someone who is not always sure he's doing the right thing for the right reasons. This book is part of a trilogy but it can be read on its own. You might like reading all the books in the Wyckersley trilogy though because you'll enjoy reading about all the characters as their lives intertwine around the river Wyck (or Wick?) in England around the turn of the century. To Have and to Hold is a particularly different romance book. Sebastian, the "hero" is about as unlikable as a "hero" can get at the start of this book and it's absorbing to read how he turns his life around by the end of the book.

When I first picked this book up after reading the other two, I didn't know for sure if I'd like it. For starters, Sophie just wasn't my favorite person and I was disappointed when I found out it was about her. I quickly changed my mind. I loved it! I loved her and I loved Connor.

This is a wonderful book. I love the entire Wyckerley series. This is the 3rd and final in the series but it doesn't matter if you read them out of order. If you want to read a great romance novel that is completely original, read all three of the Wyckerley novels. They are all beautiful, unconventional stories.

This is the story of Sophie and Connor. It is essentially a story about love across class differences. Sophie has inherited her father's copper mine near the village of Wyckerley and Connor is from a poor Cornish mining background. Connor's family are miners born and bred but as the youngest and brightest son he is sent to school and then manages to get into a working man's university to study law. He becomes a reformer and goes 'undercover' to work in Sophie's mine to reveal unsafe practises and abuses. An unlikely love affair starts between the two of them with not much hope for the future but fate intervenes and the two of them wind up married. The second half of the book deals with how they deal with their differences and problems. I loved the first two books in this series but this one slightly less. Patricia Gaffney writes beautifully and her research is thorough but I think for me the characters were not quite so likeable as in the previous two books. Sophie was very proud and Connor had a huge chip on his shoulder and whilst they wind up happily ever after, of course, I just didn't like them quite as much as Anne and Christy from To Love and To Cherish and Rachel and Sebastian from To Have and to Hold. That said it is a well written story, believable, moving and emotionally intense and if you have read the first two it's definitely worth it.

Heart wrenching at times but so well written couldn't stop reading. I've read two other of this author's books and they are all excellent.