I loved when she found the old hat box in her Grandmother's closet with the pictures and that's when the love story is told.

Romance with some mental health issues is it too late for a happy ending. Never to late!!

I will difently be looking for more books by this author

My thanks to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a quick read offering a nice family story about the past and future.
Emily Prentice is looking over an old hatbox filled old photographs belonging to her grandmother. She is surprised to learn upon seeing some of the photos that her father had been married to his high school sweetheart prior to meeting and marrying her mother.
Emily’s mother has passed away, and her dad is alone, managing all right, but not really happy.
Emily finds out that Jack and Libbie had fallen in love back in 1968 and married after graduation from high school. Libbie comes from a well-to-do family, and Jack from a farm family. What no one realizes at the time is that Libbie has mental issues, which lead her to alcohol and drugs. Eventually Jack realizes that he can’t help her and has to move on with his own life.
Emily is determined to find out what happened to Libbie, if nothing else to satisfy her own curiosity. This was an easy read, and I liked it.

Adorable and charming are two of the words that come to mind after reading this novel. Deanna Lynn Sletten did a good job of addressing serious issues including mental health disorders and alcohol/drug abuse while maintaining a light, romance novel feel.

The main character Emily was easy-going and made it easy to go along with her on her journey although I thought she took her father's first marriage a bit too well right away and she was so connected to Libbie immediately that it felt a bit unrealistic. However, it was a sweet story and even brought a few tears to my eyes a few times.

I have to admit that when I selected this book, I thought I was getting a family saga with a touch of mystery. WRONG. Instead, Finding Libbie is pure romance, not a genre I am particularly fond of and therefore something I only occasionally dip into.

But putting that aside, I found the writing rather dull. For a story about love, passion and mental illness, there was no fire, no passion in the writing. It was all rather flat and came across like a school essay written by a rather mediocre student.

Another minus for me was the predictability of the plot. It all unfolds like a fairy story, complete with the requisite curse by an evil fairy godmother, and so its path was pretty easily discerned.

I have read some really good romantic mysteries, but unfortunately, this wasn't one of them. With a little thought it could have been.

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing via Netgalley for providing a digital copy of Finding Libbie by Deanna Lynn Sletten for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for allowing me the opportunity to read this e-book in exchange for an honest review. Emily is cleaning out her grandmother's closet where she finds a picture of her father, Jack, with a woman named Libbie who was Jack's first wife unbeknownst to Emily. The book is then divided into two parts. The first part of the book is about Jack and Libbie and their life together. The second part is about Emily trying to find Libbie and fit together the pieces of the puzzle. Finding Libbie is such a touching story about first loves, lost loves, and redemption. It will definitely warm your heart!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed this book. It did get a little long and repetitive in the middle, but I found myself really wanting to figure out what happened.

This was not an easy book to read so I'm very glad it had a happy ending. I realized Libbi'e's problem almost immediately, however, I grew up around it, and the then current treatments, and spent much of my adult life around it. The changes in approach to mental illness and health are staggering. I am certain some readers will feel the ending is just a bit too sweet, but it would be too dismal for it to have ended any other way. Hope is crucial.

I absolutely loved this book!!! It was a real page turner for me! I was completely drawn in by the characters and couldn't put this book down!

I had a bit of a hard time getting into this one. Once Jack and Libbie's story began, I couldn't put the book down. This one brought back memories of The Notebook. I appreciated the handling of the mental illness and alcoholism aspects of the story. The writing touched my heart and was very insightful. This is the most uplifting story I have read in years.

I loved this book. Really well written, and compelling.