Title: Grocery Girl
Author: Virginia’dele Smith
Publisher: Books are Ubiquitous, LLC
Genre: Contemporary Romance
First Publication: 2021
Language: English
Book Summary: Grocery Girl by Virginia’dele Smith
She inhales life with every breath. He’s suffered a world of pain. Can they rise above tragedy to find their happily ever after?
Maree Davenport refuses to let a tearful past rule her future. After losing her parents at the age of five, the big-hearted fabric designer is determined to embrace her feelings and find happiness no matter what. So when she literally runs over a handsome new firefighter in the produce section, the hopeless romantic is certain she’s just collided with destiny.
Everyone Rhys Larsen ever loved has died. And though he may have hit it off with the pretty girl at the store, the haunted EMT knows better than to let her into his heart. But when an accident leaves her wounded and in need of care, he vows to nurse her back to health.
As Maree struggles to break through the grieving man’s walls, she fears his deep-seated superhero complex will make him unreachable. And as Rhys grapples with trying to protect the beautiful woman from his curse, he worries he’ll have to choose between doing the right thing and true love.
Can this conflicted couple reconcile their opposite takes on adversity and find purpose in each other’s arms?
Grocery Girl is the touching first book in the Green Hills wholesome small-town romance series. If you like strong but vulnerable characters, emotional growth, and quaint backdrops, then you’ll adore Virginia’dele Smith’s celebration of joy.
Book Review: Grocery Girl by Virginia’dele Smith
When you’re reading, you travel in time and space, but most importantly, you travel inside your mind, inside characters’ emotion, inside author’s head and heart. It is a voyage of discovery, whether you’re reading some crime mystery or romance or anything. As a reader, you are going somewhere in a more intimate contact than you have with any other being on the planet. Movies, TV or anything cannot take you as deep into the essence of feeling and emotion as reading does. And no matter whatever the genre you’re reading, if it’s well written, the book speaks to the reader. Grocery Girl by Virginia’dele Smith does the same.
Maree Davenport lost her parents when she was only five. She has faced a lot of hardship at very young age, but she will not let her future be dictated by a tearful past. Determination to find happiness in the face of her circumstances drives her every day. When she first saw the handsome new firefighter Rhys Larsen at store, she believed that they were just fated to be together.
Rhys Larsen’s entire past is dotted with tragic deaths. Despite feeling a connection with the pretty girl at the store, the haunted EMT knows better than to be taken in by her. However, when an accident leaves her injured and needing treatment, he vows to take care of her. Rhys falls hopelessly in love with young, beautiful, charming, highly intelligent yet distant Maree. Her beauty, her charm draw him in like a siren’s call.
While Maree struggles to break through the walls of his heart, Rhys struggles with his desire to protect the beautiful woman from his curse of losing everyone he loves. They are both damaged, lost, and guarded until they find one another on this emotional journey of love. Buckle up for a ride that will not only break your heart, but put it back together by the end.
This book, Grocery Girl, is sweet, touching, oozing charm, full of wonderful, likable characters, and has a surprising amount of emotional depth and insight about love, loss and the tendency of people to put their hopes in things that may or may not always be as real as they think. It’s not just about finding the person who makes your heart race or swoon but it’s also about learning about who you are, what is actually important and what makes you tick. It’s peppered with a little humour and there’s a dash of sadness. The setting of Green Hills is gorgeous and used very effectively in the storytelling!!
The writing is beautiful imbued with the rich language that arrest the reader’s heart. Virginia’dele Smith tells her story not in so many words but through the description of thoughts and conduct of her characters. The theme of love is expounded on the thoughts and conduct of Maree and Rhys. With a slowly and deliciously unravelling story, author gradually introduces lives and issues of characters.
Virginia’dele Smith, knows how to write emotion – gritty, sad, heart achingly moving emotion. This was an unforgettable reading experience. The author weaves a mixture of light and dark, love and hate, pain and joy, past and future, Suffering and healing. All put together in a gorgeously written, relatively short book. In Grocery Girl, Virginia’dele Smith captured both the thrill and fumbling perfection of first love – the awkwardness, curiosity, desire, hope. Highly recommended.
