{Release Day Review} Wind Chime Summer (Wind Chime #3) by Sophie Moss (@SMossWrites)

If you open your heart, it will always lead you home…
 
Since leaving the Army six months ago, Izzy Rivera has closed herself off from everyone and everything. Struggling with a debilitating case of PTSD, she has been fired from three jobs and was recently arrested for assault. Her last hope is a rehab program for veterans on Heron Island, which she was admitted to on a probationary basis and which she must complete to stay out of jail.
 
After establishing an illustrious career as a marine biologist, Ryan Callahan has returned to Heron Island to open a nonprofit to save the Chesapeake Bay and help his father—a fourth-generation waterman—expand his oyster farm. As one of the primary employers for the veterans’ center, Ryan is counting on his new workforce to make the merging of these two operations a success.
 
But Ryan underestimated the challenges of employing a group of physically and psychologically wounded veterans—particularly the female Army veteran who wants nothing to do with his nonprofit, his father’s farm, or the peaceful island that’s supposed to help her heal. Can Ryan find a way to convince Izzy to believe in something again? Or will the shell she’s built around her heart trap her in the past forever?

​Isabella Rivera didn’t come to the Chesapeake Bay area because she wanted to.  She found herself having to choose between there and jail.  The choice was easy to make. 
 
She’s now a part of a program designed to help veterans to start putting their lives back together when they were once destroyed by war.  She’s going to keep her head down, do the job and go home.  She never counted on meeting someone who could make her want so much more out of life than just existing. And that someone is Ryan Callahan.

She’d been so ready to write him off the moment she’d found out he was a farmer. But he wasn’t like any of the farmers she’d worked for as a child. He wasn’t running a soulless operation focused on productivity and the bottom line, ready to exploit its workers at any cost.

He might be running a farm, but he was a waterman at heart. And the men who worked these waters loved these waters. Every one of them had a story to tell, a personal history stitched into this tapestry of tributaries and marsh grasses. All Ryan was doing was trying to stitch a new future into it— one that would last. And she knew exactly how she was going to help him.

She might not be able to reclaim her dream, but she could help Ryan achieve his.

​Ryan made his home on the island because he wanted a chance to make a difference.  As a marine biologist, he’s witnessed how climate change and over fishing in the Bay has had a direct impact on both the delicate ecosystems and the lives of the people who live there.  It’s been his goal to breathe life once again into his father’s oyster farm and the veterans in the program are going to help him do just that.
 
But there’s something about Izzy that he just can’t ignore. He’s going to discover what it is that haunts her nightmares even if it means that he has to let her go forever.

Before she had a chance to react, to even consider what was happening, his mouth was on hers. And all the passion, all the heat, all the frustration he hid so carefully beneath that calm, easygoing cover shattered the last of her resolve. She felt something snap, break open inside her, and then she was kissing him back, like a woman who was starving.

“Izzy,” he breathed, pulling her against him. Their bodies locked together, and the taste of him— salty, minty, masculine— shot into her like a drug. She could feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt, the beat of his heart against her palm as she ran her hands up the hard muscles of his chest. She’d forgotten what it felt like to kiss without fear, to touch without fear.

To live without fear.

Wind Chime Summer isn’t just an ordinary romance. Sophie Moss once again weaves a tale that is so delicately detailed that I could actually smell the salt air and hear the water crashing into the shore. 
 
It’s about finding strength when there is nothing left and daring to fall in love regardless of circumstances.  And it’s a journey that completely took me by surprise – in the very best of ways…

About The Author ~

Sophie Moss is a USA Today bestselling and multi-award winning author. She is known for her captivating Irish fantasy romances and heartwarming contemporary romances with realistic characters and unique island settings. As a former journalist, Sophie has been writing professionally for over ten years. She lives in Maryland, where she’s working on her next novel. When she’s not writing, she’s testing out a new dessert recipe, exploring the Chesapeake Bay, or fiddling in her garden. Sophie loves to hear from readers.

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Visit With Sophie ~
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