At thirty-one, Elise Calvert is no stranger to loss. Left entirely alone after her husband passes, she has no one to turn to when the loneliness creeps in and becomes too much to bear. But it’s okay. Alone is good. It’s what she’s used to. It’s safe, secure, and there’s no chance of having your heart ripped from your chest when you keep yourself isolated from the rest of the world.Going through … world.
Going through life completely numb, however, is not without its consequences. When, on a whim, Elise ditches her solitary life in Seattle for a temporary move back to her hometown in Iowa, she begins to wonder if being entirely alone is really what she wants after all. But she has plans, big plans – ones that certainly don’t include falling in love with Humphrey Malone. Who just happens to be her landlord. And someone with whom she also happens to share a steamy past.
Love isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Elise has no desire to hand her heart – her freedom – over to anyone ever again. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans…
One Fluttering Heartbeat is the first book in the Prairie Tales series by Lisa Sorbe and can be read as a standalone.
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She didn’t want to live any longer. It wasn’t that she thought of suicide, she just didn’t want to go forward. This is a tale of recovery. Not just recovery from loss but for her it was so much more. Ms Sorbe writes a story with all of the feels. This emotional story of loss and learning not only to live again after the loss but how to do more than survive. It’s a brilliant story of not just finding yourself but getting to know who you are instead of running and settling. For Humphrey it’s finding what he had been looking for. He wasn’t a one night stand kind of guy and he didn’t settle. He was an all or nothing type of guy. She thought her heart broke when she heard that one fluttering heartbeat signaling his last breath when it was just waiting for a reason to beat again. I haven’t read this author before but dang it if I don’t like her style. She has the perfect blend of sex and fun and story to just twist you all up before she puts you back together.
One Fluttering Heartbeat is the first book in (A Prairie Tale) series by Lisa Sorbe and it is a romance novel. The story is about a 31 year old woman named Elise Calvert who moves back home to Iowa after living in Seattle for 10 years. Elise’s husband, Neil died from lung cancer four years earlier, and she has just decided that she’s had enough of just existing, alone in her world of self pity, living on her husband’s insurance money, and that she needs to get on with her life. Also her best friend, June recently got engaged to her boyfriend, Alex two weeks before Elise’s move, and she has asked Elise to be her Maid of Honor. Elise is accompanied on her trip back to Iowa by her dog, Phoebe, who she adopted two months after Neil’s death. Phoebe gave Elise someone to take care of after Neil’s death, and “ a reason to get up in the morning”. Elise has decided that she will never fall in love again because she doesn’t want to give up her dreams for someone else’s, which is what she did for Neil when they moved to Seattle. Elise has rented a house in Cedar Hills where she grew up, for six months, and plans to travel after that to some place she’s always wanted to go.
When Elise arrives in Cedar Hills she finds out that she is renting the house from a very attractive, athletic, muscular man named Humphrey who is out running with his german shepherd, Kevin at midnight at the time they arrive at the house. The next day at June and Alex’s House Warming Party, Elise is told that Humphrey is Alex’s Best Man. June and Alex also tell Elise that they feel that Humphrey would be a good person for Elise to date. Elise finally recognizes Humphrey as someone she knew as “Fox” eleven years earlier; he is someone with whom she shared a very special night all those years ago, but who she ran away from the next morning. Elise didn’t feel that she was good enough for Fox because his family has money and Elise has been working since she was fourteen years old just to survive because her father died without a life insurance policy, leaving Elise and her mother with a lot of bills and no money for basic necessities. Humphrey knows that this is the same Elise who ran away from him eleven years before. He and Elise slowly become friends after getting to know each other again. But will Elise ever break down the walls that she’s put up and see that she really deserves to be happy?
I really enjoyed this book! Lisa Sorbe has written some wonderful characters, and she made it easy for the reader to relate to Elise’s state of mind after her life’s story is revealed. I enjoyed how the author presented the story in alternating timelines, so that the history of events of the past correlate with the events of the present as they are occurring in the story. The ending of the book was so wonderful, too! It was one of the most satisfying endings to a romance novel that I’ve read in a while. I would definitely recommend this book to all lovers of a great roman