Title:  Bliss and the Art of Forever
Series:  Hope Springs $4
Author:  Alison Kent
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Published:  April 7, 2015
Publisher:  Montlake Romance
My Rating:  5 stars
Source:  Borrowed, Kindle Unlimited
Cover Description:

Now that she’s committed to leaving Hope Springs, she’s falling for the wrong man…but he just might give her all the right reasons to stay.

Two years after her husband’s death, kindergarten teacher Brooklyn Harvey is leaving Hope Springs for her in-laws’ vineyard in Italy—with no plans of coming back. That is, until she meets a disarmingly sexy biker-turned-chocolatier. He might be the man of her dreams, but he’s also the father of one of her students; as such, he’s strictly off-limits.

Callum Drake knows a good thing when he sees one, and he doesn’t want to let Brooklyn get away, even if his rival for her affection is the ghost of her dead husband. He’ll do whatever it takes to win her over, including making chocolates concocted just for her—chocolates that evoke memories of their time together. But can he create a second love bright enough to pull her, and her heart, out of living in the past?

Read on for my thoughts on Bliss and the Art of Forever.  No true spoilers, promise.

Bliss and the Art of Forever is probably one of the deepest layered story I have read in a long time.  Reading this romance goes beyond the simple act of reading – it is an immersion into the lives of three people, how they fell in love, when they knew to let go of the past and where their shared future would take them.

Brooklyn is preparing to depart Hope Springs.  She is planning on returning to her deceased husband’s family home in Italy.  Going there to spread his ashes as he had requested her to do in some place he’d loved was one of her reasons.  The other was to help her cousin set up a teaching plan for the small village the family lived in.  It had been almost two years since Artie’s death, doing what he loved most about being a fireman.. saving others.  She missed him every day but he had made her promise no mourning forever, two years at most, then she had to go on living.  She’d promised.  And this plan made the most sense in keeping that promise.  Or it had… before she met Callum and his adorable six year old daughter, Addy.

Callum knew the moment he stepped into his daughter’s classroom for Dads Read, Too day that he was a goner for Adrianne’s teacher.  He thought he might have caught a glimpse of interest from her, which is why he’s standing in the classroom doorway again hoping he isn’t about to make a huge mistake.  Callum knew that as an ex-biker, tats and all plus his Harley outside made quite an at odds picture against his business as a chocolatier. .. as well as being a single father with never a mention of Addy’s mother to be heard.  He also knew he would do anything in this world to keep his little girl safe and happy – but here was a woman that he’d like to take a chance on, some spark, something that said yeah, this could be the one.  Only time would tell, but the first step had to be taken.

This story is all about falling in love.  The past, the questions, the getting to know you, the what ifs… all of it.  Bliss and the Art of Forever is a slow cooked delight of the experience of falling in love and all of the complications of a life lived before finding someone to love again.  By the time you finish the last page you will have been surrounded by Brooklyn, Callum and Addy’s experience.  I enjoyed every second of this journey and I believe you would too.

Yes, there are issues with some secondary characters, and these are necessary to the story.  And we meet up, in passing, with some of the characters from earlier in the series.  But this one is that delightful, rainy day in the windowseat kind of reading.  The kind that takes you into another person’s entire life, the kind that really gives you the feeling of living the story.  This one is a keeper because this one is what deep love ia all about.

Available in paperback, audio and for the Kindle