Lately, I’ve been reading several books that are in series. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with books in series. I love them because you can really get to know the characters throughout the series. Yet, I hate them a bit because sometimes it’s forever before the next book comes out. Along with that, since I often end up with a book that’s not the first in the series, I’m sometimes confused about the characters and the plot.
Introducing the Book
Recently, I got the chance to read Love on the Brain, the sixth book in the Crane’s Cove series. This book came out on July 10th, so you can purchase it now. It was available to me through BookSirens, and while it was marketed to me as being a standalone book, I wouldn’t recommend starting with this book. I had not read the previous books in the series, and I wish that I’d started at the beginning of the series instead of skipping ahead to this one. While most of it made sense, there were a few places where I was confused about how a specific character fits into the story. I think if I’d read the previous books in the series, I would have known the other characters better, and I wouldn’t have been confused.
As a standalone novel, I feel like this is a 4-star book. I’m giving the confusion a bit of the benefit of the doubt and saying that as part of a series, I think it would be 5 stars. I’m splitting the difference and giving the book 4.5 stars.
Potential Warnings
I would definitely count on getting a little bit emotional as you read this book. Let’s just say that there’s a small boy (5 years old) who has a tumor on his brain. His father died of brain cancer two years ago. There are a few scenes that were emotional for the characters as well as for me, as the reader. While I was never bawling, I got a little teary-eyed while reading.
This is a clean book. It does have some Christian themes. Both of our two main characters grew up as the child of a pastor. There’s no swearing or violence. There’s some kissing, but there are no sex scenes or sexual conversations that might make a reader uncomfortable.
Death and cancer are both topics in this novel, which might be hard for some readers. There is also alcohol consumption throughout the book. It’s not to the excess, so most readers will not find the alcohol consumption offensive. I wouldn’t say that it is presented in a positive light, but it’s not presented in a negative light either.
Final Thoughts
Overall, this is a book that I would recommend. I haven’t read the other books in the series, so I can’t say for sure that they’ll be as good, but I’d probably suggest reading the series from the beginning. I think that I would have enjoyed it even more if I’d done that.
