I’ll Be Your Blue Sky – Review

Thank you William Morrow Books for sending me a copy to read and review. All opinions and thoughts are my own so let’s jump right in.

I’ve read all of Marisa De Los Santos’ (adult) books and Love Walked In holds a special place in my heart (and my bookshelf). I can’t remember exactly how I ran across her debut novel several years ago but the friendship between Cornelia and young Clare stole my heart. When the second book Belong To Me was released I knew I would read it as well.

Imagine my surprise about a week ago when I discovered De Los Santos was releasing another book with the characters I’d come to know and love. (In the IG story of fellow bookstagrammer Rachel and blogger Reading Brings Joy). As soon as I received the book and before the weekend was over, I’d finished the book.

“Why, I’ll be your blue sky.”

When you come across the title of the book within the first few pages of reading, does it set the tone for what’s to come? Do you wonder what connotations this will have as the story unfolds and the characters come to life?

This book felt like being at home and catching up with friends I haven’t talked to in a while. I couldn’t believe Clare Hobbes grown up now and about to get married! Imagine my surprise to discover its not to her best friend and childhood sweetheart Dev (Cornelia’s stepson) but someone else, her fiancé Zach. I’m thinking where did he come from?

Clare describes Zach-

“The man was bona fide catch. Give him a chaise and four, an estate, and ten thousand pounds a year, and any Austen heroine would go stumbling over the countryside in her Regency heels to get him.”

I thought this very funny especially since I’ve been reading a lot of Austen lately (Sense and Sensibility and now Emma) and it seemed as if Clare helped me understand her hesitation in convincing herself to marry Zach. It became clear something was there beneath the surface, although Clare didn’t come right out and say so. If you’re about to marry the love of your life, do you need to make a list to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing? I think not.

The morning of her wedding Clare decides to go talk to Edith, an older woman who quoted a line from a book about courage the day before when she was speaking to her mom and Cornelia about her doubts about marrying Zach.

“You’re his blue sky. When everything else is darkness.”

“But is he yours?”

After talking to Edith, a virtual stranger to Clare (but as readers we are somewhat acquainted with Edith’s past told in flashbacks) Clare sees how one sided, cloudy and grey her sky has been throughout her relationship with Zach. The day of the wedding Clare tells Zach she can’t marry him and here comes dark and angry Zach. All of this and in the first several chapters but there’s much left to the story.

Soon after, Edith dies and leaves Clare her house, the Blue Sky House. As Clare begins to think about how she’s gotten to this place in her life, to examine herself and her relationship with Zach, she discovers something about Edith’s past in some old journal legders. Clare will discover how Edith’s blue sky became dark when her beloved husband, Joseph, died a few years after their marriage. How did Edith recover and help others to find their blue skies? And how does this help Clare find hers too?

De Los Santos did not disappoint, I enjoyed this book and recommend it! Although you don’t have to read the two books I mentioned above, I would suggest reading both because you understand the essence of the relationships with the main characters in this story (with the exception of Edith and Zach, they are new people).

Have you read any books by the author?