I was impressed with how the story started, it was so captivating. I enjoyed reading this book. There were moments that I felt the story dragged on a little. Otherwise, I felt that it was an enjoyable read.

Nuanced, honest and well written multicultural romance novels are hard to find but...."Hope Blooms". This was a wonderful read that explored grief, renewal, timing and the power of love to heal.

This is a very powerful, emotional, filled story that takes you on a journey of to people’s lives, really three and more. The book opens with Cassandra Miller a school teacher of a kindergarten class and a tragedy begins when one of her students’ father is coming into the school demanding to have his daughter. She knows she needs to do something different and along with her aide has the children leave through a window, and across the field to the fire station. That is until she hears her husband’s voice in the hall trying to talk to the armed man. To no avail he gets shot along with her and before she passes out the police take out the parent. Not a way to open a book but I must say it works. After months of recovery Cassandra though out of the hospital is still not getting herself out of bed. She is extremely depressed. Somehow her mother has found her long lost friend and ex-Marine Wylie James. He comes and takes her away from the town to where he is living and his house. The story gives you glimpses back into what their lives were like growing up, for Cassandra, Wylie, and her husband grew up together and she and her husband were next door neighbors. As she is healing so to be the memories coming back and you as the reader are given two stories in one. The current, and the past you are given a look into how things were from each of their perspectives, and this helps make the story become clearer. This is a love story but they have to deal with the past and she wants to know why he left ten years without a word. This and a few other things really all lead up to a great ending. The characters in the book were all very good, especially Theo, and Wylie’s sister. This is a very good book. That takes you on a ride from the beginning to the end, not many books can do that but this does. Outstanding!

I enjoyed HOPE BLOOMS, and I recommend it. The HEA is truly heartwarming!

Is past prologue? For childhood friends and once long-ago lovers Cassandra Miller and Wylie Everett, perhaps so.

It takes a massive tragedy to bring Wylie back to Cassandra’s side. The angry, embittered father of one of Cassandra’s students shoots Cassandra and her husband Terrance in the hallway outside Cassandra’s classroom. Terrance dies; Cassandra loses her unborn child, and, her mother Miss Cora fears, her sanity. So Cora tells Cassandra, “speaking” for Terrance.

“He wouldn’t want you to be like this.”

“He would want to be alive if he had a choice.” She rolled over, away from her mother’s touch, her worried eyes. Suddenly the exhaustion returned again. It was the only thing she felt anymore. Tired and heavy.

“You can’t go on like this. You haven’t left the house in weeks. You haven’t smiled since it happened. You didn’t die that day. Your life is meant to be lived.”

Miss Cora pleads with Wylie Everett to come back to Harmony Falls, Connecticut, for the sake of the friendship—and more—he once had with Terrance and Cassandra. In high school they were an unbreakable trio. But it has been ten years since Wylie has been home. Even though Cora is ageless, so much has changed.

Her skin was still smooth and the color of milk chocolate, her clothes still so feminine and pretty. Her hair was white now, but that only added to that air of regality that she always carried around with her. He knew that Cassandra had inherited some of that from her mother. But he also knew that there was more to Cassandra than that. There was a side of her that only he ever got to see.

With this show not tell we learn that there was, perhaps still is, a class difference between former Marine and native Alabaman Wylie, and aristocratic Miss Cora and her family. But that’s irrelevant now (and never was an issue for Miss Cora). Cassandra’s mother thinks Wylie is “the only one who can get through to her.” Wylie picks up Cassandra, puts her in the front seat of his pickup and drives away. Cassandra feels “safe, shielded, protected,” as the miles and the hours slip away. Their destination is Wylie’s “quiet town of Aquinnah, Martha’s Vineyard.”

Hope Blooms is a story of rejuvenation, starting over, making amends, and living life differently—seizing that second chance. It all starts with getting out of bed and taking an involuntary cold shower. Cassandra’s mind is a perpetual loop as she goes over and over those impossibly difficult questions—like “Why did she live when their son had to die?” Wylie shatters her mournful fugue.

He was angry. His eyes were determined and she was lifted from the bed and into his arms.

The sound of water grew closer. He took her to his bathroom. Before she could think, before she could process where she was, she was beneath icy cold water. She gasped. Grapping Wylie, trying to get closer, trying to get out of the way of a cold blast. But he wouldn’t let her. He held her there in her arms and she realized that she was too weak to fight him.

“You feel this, don’t you, Cass? You feel this and it means you’re still alive. You can still feel. You can still breathe.” He set her on her feet and turned her to face him. “You want a reason to get out of bed? I’ll give you one. You lived. You can move on and start a new life.

And she does. Every day is a little better than the one before. Cass meets Wylie’s family and friends, goes for walks on the beach, gradually thaws out and warms up and blooms again…so much so that the person taking cold showers is Wylie, as he desperately tries to rein in his burgeoning feelings for Cass, in an effort not to sway her thoughts about her uncertain future.

There’s so much humor in Cass and Wylie’s story. Like when Cassandra meets Nova, Wylie’s straightforward, somewhat prickly sister. Nova always knew about Wylie’s “fancy girl from Connecticut” but she tells Cass she “imagined someone more like Gwyneth Paltrow.”

“You mean, you didn’t think I would be black? I like to think of myself as a cross between Lena Horne and Kerry Washington, only with a better butt.”

What can Nova do or say with a statement like that? She throws back her head and laughs. Tears and laughter are a hallmark of Hope Blooms. I look forward to reading more from Jamie Pope, in particular, Nova’s story, Love Blooms, coming later this year.

a good solid read. I enjoyed

I enjoyed this book a lot. The storyline was great as well as the characters. It definitely had it touching moments. This is the first book I've read from this author and it definitely won't be my last. I would definitely recommend it to my book loving family and friends.