Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos
From the book jacket –
When Martin Grace enters the hip Philadelphia coffee shop Cornelia Brown manages, her life changes forever. Charming and debonair, the spitting image of Cary Grant, Martin sweeps Cornelia off her feet, but, as it turns out, Martin Grace is more the harbinger of change than the change itself…
Meanwhile, on the other side of town, eleven year old Clare Hobbes must learn to fend for herself after her increasingly unstable mother has a breakdown and disappears. Taking inspiration from famous orphans (Anne Shirley, Sara Crewe, Mary Lennox, and even Harry Potter), Clare musters the courage to seek out her estranged father. When the two of them show up at Cornelia’s cafe, Cornelia and Clare form a bond as unlikely as it is deep. Together, they face difficult choices and discover that knowing what you love and why is as real as life gets.
My thoughts –
I absolutely loved this book. The first chapter reads like chick lit, which made me very wary of what was to come, but once Clare came into the picture, everything started to make sense and the book had a life of its own. The story really got to me, I mean I sobbed during several of the scenes. And I just loved how de los Santos drew the story out slowly, making you fall in love with the characters before you really understood anything about their lives, so that when important things happened, you cared so much about what would happen to the characters involved. I also liked how it ended (obviously, I won’t give it away) – not exactly what you hope for, but if it was somebody’s actual life, it couldn’t have ended in a better way. Even though this may not be the best written or most literary book out there, it has plenty of value and is an incredibly touching story that will stay with you for awhile (I finished it last week, and am still thinking about it).
9.5 stars 🙂
Book Addiction 
I just requested this from the library last week — I have a bit of a wait, but I’m especially looking forward to it after reading your review! Thank you…
I read Belong To Me as an early review book – which is the sequel to this one – and LOVED it. You can catch my review here. I think it is now out in bookstores. I ran out and bought Love Walked In as soon as I finished Belong to Me! I know I’m going to love it.
I just saw this at the bookstore, and I thought it looked interesting. After your great review, I think I’ll definitely have to add it to my list!
Wow, I love books where you really care about the characters. And, to still be thinking about it a week later definitely is a good sign to me. I’m going to check it out.
I didn’t know that Belong to Me was the sequel to this one. I’m very interested after your review. Thanks, I’ll be looking into this one.
Thanks for stopping by Passion for the Page and leaving a link to your review. I’m about 100 pages into Belong to Me and I’m loving it, too ;>)!
Hi Everyone. I just loved this book, and found out this evening that here is a sequel, for anyone interested, called Belong To Me! I can’t wait to go get it!!!
Robin
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