30 March

♕ REVIEW ♕ ARC ♕ THE BIRTHDAY LIST BY DEVNEY PERRY

TITLE: The Birthday List

AUTHOR: Devney Perry

GENRE: Romance

PUBLICATION: April 3rd, 2018

4 Minute by Minute stars

THE BIRTHDAY LIST:

Is a full length Contemporary Romance Novel by new to me author Devney Perry.

In the ‘PROLOGUE:’

Poppy and Jamie had met each other on the the first day of their sophomore years at Montana State, that was the day she had met the man of her dreams. Her future husband to be. James Sawyer Maysen.

On the eve of their one year wedding anniversary Poppy receives news that we never want to hear in our life time, that her husband had been killed. Leaving her as a twenty five year old widow.

Life from that day forwards life had seemed to have stopped for Poppy.

FIVE YEARS LATER:
Since Jamie’s life had been cut so short Poppy has decided to work her way through her deceased husband's birthday list. The first on the list was to open their dream cafe, ‘The Maysen Jar’ which she had accomplished and was proving to be a huge success.

My heart had been in pieces sine the night Jamie had been killed. It had taken every day of the last five years for the pain in my chest to fade to a dull ache.

Jamie’s birthday list had become an obsession of his, it was his own version of a bucket list except it would be a birthday list instead of a list of things he wanted to accomplish before each birthday.

She’d also already braved skydiving, the next thing on his list was to learn karate. That day when she turns up for class she runs into Cole Goodman, the cop that came knocking on her door many years ago informing her that her husband was dead. Going through his birthday list and accomplishing each activity set out was in some ways offering her closure, allowing her to finally put him to rest and allowing her to say goodbye to him.

There’s electricity sizzling between them which Cole felt straight away which he's never felt towards any other female before and he's sure she feels the same way he just has to wait until she's ready to move on.

I really enjoyed the simplicity of this story, just a straight up raw emotional beautiful story of Poppy’s struggle to find her ground after the brutal death of her husband. I would’ve liked to have seen the effects this had on her personally instead of the jump that occurred (5 years later) I just wanted to stay in that moment for a wee bit longer, to feel the build up of emotions of losing someone so dear to her heart but with the big jump that occured I didn't get to fully feel the debilitating struggle she would've gone through losing the love of her life.

But where I did get those feelings was the ticking off of Jamies birthday list, so beautiful, so unique, that's where all the feels came rushing at me. Add in Cole and he was just the icing on the cake.

Happily married to her college sweetheart, Poppy lived a blessed life with the husband of her dreams. Then everything changed. She is no longer a wife. She is no longer the envy of her single friends. Now, people look at her with pity as they whisper a single word behind her back.

Widow.

Years after her husband’s tragic death, years of pain and sorrow and wishing for the life she’ll never get back, Poppy decides to finish Jamie’s birthday list. She’ll do the things he wanted to most. Because maybe, just maybe, if she can complete his list, she can start to live again.

Poppy expects going through the birthday list will be hard. She expects it to hurt. But what she doesn’t expect is Cole. Could the man who delivered the news of her husband’s death and shattered her heart be the one to help her put it back together again?

Devney is a USA Today bestselling author who lives in Montana with her husband and two children. After working in the technology industry for nearly a decade, she abandoned conference calls and project schedules to enjoy a slower pace at home with her kids. She loves reading and, after consuming hundreds of books, decided to share her own stories.