Review: Dear Miklos

Title: Dear Miklos
Author: Victoria Bastedo
Page Count: 168
My Rating: 3 TURTLES: An enjoyable read, but I suggest check out if you like the topic before adding it to your to-read list.
*the author provided me with a copy in exchange for an honest review
Dear Miklos on Amazon

Description (from Goodreads):
The Greek Isles held an allureshe couldn't deny.

His name was Miklos.

When Therese was ten, she would have drowned had it not been for Miklos, the handsome Greek boy who dove from his boat to save her life. Now grown and with years of letter-writing between them, she needs him again. Recovering from an illness, Therese is advised to leave the Pacific Northwest rain behind, and return to the Grecian sun and the sea -and Miklos.

Miklos hasn't seen his friend in years. He isn't a boy anymore, nor is Therese the young girl he pulled from the water. She's so much more. But before they have a chance to deepen their relationship, they're interrupted by a dangerous stalker, an unwelcome pursuit, and the discovery of Therese's long-lost father. If Miklos wants to become more than a penpal for the rest of her life, he may have to save her for the second time. 

Review:
Dear Miklos is a short, clean contemporary romance (although it is set forty years in the past). It was fun, adventurous, and had a fantastic setting. I'm not terribly well versed in the contemporary romance genre, but from what I do know it seems to me this book has a lot of elements that a romance fan would enjoy like I did.

For such a short book, this story has a very large cast of characters. They really develop the feeling of community that, from what little I know, seems to be a cornerstone of Greek culture. This cast really helped round out a story that might have otherwise been very heavily focused on just the two main characters like some romances tend to be, and I really liked that about this book.

One thing I often come up against in short books though is that I read the story, but I do not feel immersed in it. The brevity kept some things from filling out and this kept me from illy entering the world of the book. A few other things also kept me from fully entering and enjoying the book, one if these being that the heroine often acted as if she were much younger than her age and the Big Reveal was a bit jarring. There is a budding romance and a mysterious man following the heroine, but it is kept very vague, so when I found out what that was all about I felt like all of a sudden I was reading a different book altogether. I couldn't quite put a fiver on what I would have needed to smooth the transition, but I just knew it felt choppy to me.

All in all though, I would recommend this book to contemporary romance fans, especially as a summer or travel book. If you are looking for a light, sweet, clean read, I would suggest checking out Dear Miklos.


Disclosure: this post contains links to an affiliate program (Amazon), for which I receive a few cents if you make purchases.