Sail Away with Me

Sail Away With Me by Susan Fox Blue Moon Harbor #3 Friendship – that is what shy Iris Yakimura offers famous musician Julian Blake when they meet and spend time at an abandoned hippie commune. She knows they are too disparate to be more than friends and he is unwilling or unable to be more than a friend or lover. So, they embark on a friendship that will change both of their lives. Julian is home to help care for his injured father. Home to him is a place that he has avoided since his teens because it has more bad memories than good ones. Panic attacks still threaten when he thinks about what happened to him long ago. His music reflects emotions that speak to many who hear them. Iris is shy and on her own bath to spiritual enlightenment. She is an interesting if rather solitary person who sells books in the family bookstore. When she meets Julian she feels his emotional turmoil and does what she can to bring him some peace. This is a story of abuse that speaks of the trauma abuse has on the abused and as such it was not always easy to read. The feelings were raw and real. The decision to expose those emotions publicly could not have been easy just as it was not easy for shy Iris to stand by Julian when he did so. Even knowing that this would have a happily ever after ending – eventually – it wasn’t easy watching Iris and Julian deal with the “how” of doing so. I think that Iris’s aunt may be up next for a story and I do hope she will get her happily ever after, too. This book speaks of things I have heard about but also about an issue I had not heard of before. I knew Japanese internment happened in the USA but did not know that it happened in Canada, too. Anyway, this book left me happy and also wanting to seek my own personal enlightenment, too. Thank you to NetGalley and Kensington-Zebra for the ARC – This is my honest review. 5 Stars

A truly enjoyable story of two very different people finding their way in life and learning to love. Painfully shy Iris will make you smile and break your heart. The one place she feels comfortable in the world is her little bookshop on Destiny Island. She also believes in love. Deep down, soul touching love and she feels that one day she will meet the man that can love her just that way. Never did she expect that love to come from a bad boy celebrity musician who has secrets. Secrets he's ready to expose to the world. Will she stand by Julian's side or will she hide away in her shop leaving him to face things alone? This is a well done book and a fantastic addition to the Blue Moon Harbor series. Each of these books can be read standalone so don't worry if you haven't read the previous books. Be warned though once you experience this one you will want to go back and read the others. I highly recommend all of them.