There aren't a lot of authors that can get me really invested in a book that has a romance-driven plot, simply because I prefer plot-driven romances, on a whole. B. R. Goodwin pulls it off handily, and I totally trust her to strike the right balance between romantic and realistic.
Forget Me Knot is about a young woman named Dinah who moves to a small Georgia town to be closer to her widowed sister and niece. Dinah opens a pretzel shop and starts to fall for Jack, the guy who owns and operates a flower shop next door. But Jack has a very complicated life because he has (SPOILER ALERT!!!) a split personality thanks to a traumatic head injury. B. R. Goodwin doesn't offer any simplistic or unrealistic solutions to the inherent difficulties that presents, and I really appreciated her balanced and open-eyed look at that.
Particularly Good Bits:
Sometimes, when someone grieves, just allowing them to talk about their loved ones in their own time is the best offering (p. 61).
"No, Dinah, it sucks. It's okay to say it sucks. Grief isn't measured with time. There aren't rules for how long you're permitted to miss someone, and pretending that you don't will only hurt more in the end" (p. 170).
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a LOT of gushing about how attractive a man is, women talking about their ovaries reacting to a man, some kissing and caressing, and just generally being more romantic than a younger teen is going to enjoy anyway. Nothing smutty -- you can't even call it "closed-door" because Dinah and Jacks are both committed to waiting for marriage before having sex. But I also wouldn't hand this to my young teen daughters.
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