Review - Loving Helen by Michele Paige Holmes

This is a companion novel to Saving Grace.

Genre: romance, historical fiction
Pages: 227
Rating: 4/5
Goodreads

Summary
Eighteen-year-old Helen Thatcher grew up under the protection of her older siblings, Grace and Christopher. Living in their shadows and keeping to herself suited Helen just fine—until she met widower Samuel Preston. Watching Mr. Preston care for his young daughter and seeing his concern extend to her own family, Helen felt her reserve slipping away, as she learned first to trust him and then realized she had fallen in love with him. But instead of returning—or even noticing her affection—Mr. Preston developed his own tender, and unrequited feelings, for Grace.

In the midst of each silently nursing their broken hearts, Helen and Samuel are faced with a daunting task—reuniting Grace with her fiancé, Nicholas Sutherland. Now it is Helen who must look out for her sister and sacrifice her own fragile heart, as she and Samuel pretend to be engaged. Helen finds the role surprisingly easy to play, allowing herself to imagine that Samuel’s loving remarks are sincere. As the time for their charade to end draws near Helen must summon her courage and tell Samuel the truth of her feelings, or risk losing him forever. 

My thoughts
When I read Saving Grace I quite enjoyed the book, but I have to say Helen and Samuel Preston, the main characters of Loving Helen, were my least favorite characters. I was especially a little annoyed with Helen's extreme shyness. This book however, completely changed my view on them and I think I actually ended up liking them more than Grace and Nicholas Sutherland, who are the main characters of Saving Grace. I really enjoyed getting to know Helen better, there was a lot more to her than was apparent in the previous book. She went through a wonderful tranformation throughout this book; she really grew as a person. Now that I got to know Samuel better I also liked him a lot more, his love for both Helen and his daugther Beth was wonderful.
The end of Saving Grace felt a little rushed and it was nice to see some details explained more in this book. I generally really enjoyed seeing the story from another viewpoint. There where a lot of reminders throughout this book of the previous story, but not so much that it became annoying.
I did feel like the ending of this book was again a bit rushed, but all in all I enjoyed this book even more than the previous one!