Somebody Like You by Beth Vogt

Somebody Like You by Beth K. Vogt

After hearing so much buzz about this book, I had to read it!

Let’s begin with the summary:

Can a young widow find love again with her husband’s reflection?

Haley’s three-year marriage to Sam, an army medic, ends tragically when he’s killed in Afghanistan. Her attempts to create a new life for herself are ambushed when she arrives home one evening—and finds her husband waiting for her. Did the military make an unimaginable mistake when they told her Sam was killed?

Too late to make things right with his estranged twin brother, Stephen discovers Sam never told Haley about him. As Haley and Stephen navigate their fragile relation­ship, they are inexorably drawn to each other. How can they honor the memory of a man whose death brought them together—and whose ghost could drive them apart?

Somebody Like You is a beautifully rendered, affecting novel, reminding us that while we can’t change the past, we have the choice to change the future and start anew.

And now, my review:

I loved the original premise of this book—a man whose wife doesn’t know he has a twin, until he dies. Then the identical brother shows up at her door. Great idea for a novel!

The author didn't avoid real issues—the heroine is a widow, in the throes of grief. I appreciated the author’s ability to show us the facets of grief. Readers who have suffered loss will find much with which to relate. But she’s very closed off. At times, reading the story felt like we were kept a far distance from the heroine’s feelings, but that’s because she herself was closed off from emotions. And though this is true, readers will still sympathize with her. “No tears. Keep up.” So well written!

This poor hero didn’t get a chance to reconcile with his twin. A few poor choices left him in regret. He’s noble, and flawed, and readers will love him. He’s determined to help the heroine with things around the house, whether she wants it or not, which throws them together. He gets her through the toughest grief period, while she helps him get to know his brother.

Each character has believed some lies that will need to be dismantled.

I was a bit disappointed not to see the hero/heroine together more often at the beginning. But they do spend more and more time together. I think that’s believable since this is a romance—they’re both too broken at first for a relationship.

Their banter is delicious. Each writer has his/her own strengths. As a writer, I read somewhere that writers should find the element that readers really love about their work, and give them that. Beth does that here. Yum!

Highly recommended!