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From the publisher:

A soldier has six weeks to convince the only woman he has ever longed for to take a chance on life with him in Alaska….

Sara’s letters were the only bright spot during Gabe’s devastating tour in Iraq. With each new correspondence he fell harder, needed her more, wanted to be with her. Now, after initially rejecting his offer to meet, she’s shown up at the door of his isolated cabin in Alaska looking for…what? Gabe’s not sure what made Sara change her mind, but he knows he never wants to let her go.

Major Gabe Randall is everything Sara Ryan wants but nothing she feels she deserves. A modern-day spinster, Sara hides behind family obligations and the safe, quiet life she’s resigned herself to living. But secretly, even though she may have stretched the truth about who she is in her letters to him, she wants Gabe. Will he still want her when he discovers the real woman behind the pen?

Once they meet, Gabe asks her for six weeks in Alaska. Six weeks to spend getting to know each other, and then she’ll have to decide whether they are better together or apart.

I have long been intrigued with Alaska. I’ve never been, and I am one of those people who is always cold so whenever I mention a possible vacation to Alaska, my family just laughs at me. Whenever a book comes along that references Alaska, I’m in. Apparently, it’s as close as I’m going to get.

The story starts out with Sara, a nanny for her brother and sister-in-law’s daughter, responding to a call from a local radio station to send Easter cards to soldiers stationed overseas. Sara includes a long, rambling letter, talking about her latest embarrassment when a family member called her a spinster in front of everyone. At 35, Sara is definitely single but her life doesn’t leave her a whole lot of time for dating. Her brother and his wife take terrible advantage of her. Her mother, a recent widow, refuses to do anything for herself and relies on Sarah for way too much. Sara just adores her niece, but she is in kindergarten now, and Sara realizes she won’t be needed much longer.

Much to her surprise, she gets an email from Gabe, the soldier who received her card. That starts a correspondence that eventually moves to texting, then video chats. Sara realizes she is developing strong feelings for Gabe, and he feels the same way. Seven months in, he is getting to go home to Alaska for 6 weeks. He sends Sara a plane ticket so she can come meet him.

Sara panics, not sure how she will explain this to her family and she is really torn. Gabe realizes her family may be worried about her just up and going to Alaska to meet someone they don’t know, so on impulse, he stops in North Carolina to surprise her. Let’s just say it does not go well. Gabe gives Sara an ultimatum to come to Alaska or that will be the end but he is not really sure she will show up. Sara is quite the doormat, and her family just loves walking all over her.

I really liked these characters and wanted them to find their happily ever after. Meeting online is not new anymore, but I liked the soldier angle here. We all have some idea about the difficulties soldiers face when they are stationed in a war zone, but this brings a bit of what happens back at home, and how that affects soldiers as well. It was interesting and I always like learning something new. What I didn’t like was the beginning of the book – the letters they wrote to each other were repeated. So you read the letter as Sara wrote it, then a few pages later you read the same letter as Gabe read it. It didn’t make sense to repeat it like that, I found it annoying, and I have no idea what the editor was thinking. But once I got past that, I loved the rest of the book.

Sadly, there wasn’t a whole lot about Alaska as they don’t even get there until almost the end of the book, but I was so caught up with these characters and their story that it didn’t even matter. There was a little sex, but this read was much more about the sweet than the heat, and I highly recommend it.

3/2020 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch™