
There is a legend in Crystal Rock, Wisconsin that a kiss shared in the Crystal Rock Cave is a kiss for all eternity. When Josh kissed Nina, as frightened teenagers, little did either of them realise that many years later their lives would again be thrown together and the possibility of the legend coming true would be manifest. Josh returns to his home town, just before Christmas, a wounded hero from Iraq, a wounded warrior, no less. When he enters the Crystal Rock Wounded Warrior’s Rehabilitation Centre, he is reunited with, the now nurse, Nina. Can either of them rise above their troubled childhoods and find true love, despite the past that keeps returning to haunt them. This is the premise of this novella; Two Hearts Find Christmas (Two Hearts Wounded Warrior Romance Book 5), by Tamara Ferguson. This is the fifth book in this series based around Crystal Rock, former FBI Special Agent Jake Loughlin, and his family and friends.
This is not the first Tamara Ferguson novella I’ve read and indeed not the first Wounded Warrior novella, either. Different characters, within the group that make up the Jake Loughlin circle of family and friends are explored in each of these stories. Josh and Nina, as characters were easy to identify with and to root for. Both had had difficult, traumatic, childhoods and Ferguson dealt with some potentially horrific subject matter with sensitivity and grace. Some might argue the romance plot is fairly formulaic, but Ferguson gives much more depth to the stories, with her complicated backstory and continuity of history through the years. Definitely Two Hearts Find Christmas (Two Hearts Wounded Warrior Romance Book 5) is a chilling reminder of the evil that does exist out there among us, but also a sweet reminder of the sanctity and power of true love, plus the indomitability of the human spirit to triumph over adversity and to work for good. Although I’m not American, it was perhaps appropriate that I read this tale over Memorial Day weekend, as Americans honour the many fallen as well as the multitude of wounded warriors.
