Kindle Edition Download to your Nook (eBook) Amazon Barnes & Noble.com Rae Summers Amazon Amazon UK Category:  Romance Publisher: The Wild Rose Press ISBN-10:  B0089ODATM Type: Fiction Pages: 84 Copyright: June 6, 2012 ISBN-13: 2940014790079 Historical romance set in England in the 1920s. The discovery of a long-lost love letter in a house she’s redecorating sends Rosalie Stanton on a quest to find its rightful owner. Since his return from the Great War, William Cavendish has lived as a recluse. His peaceful existence is shattered by the return of the letter that once held all his hopes — and by its bearer, the irrepressible Rosalie, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost love. As Rosalie sets out to lure William back into society, she realises that in him she might just have met her match.

Storm Goddess Book Reviews
Here is a delightful novel that will thrill even the most jaundiced of romance readers, a well-crafted exploration of a man’s deep fears and doubts, and a woman’s ability to lift his sorrow to the realm of joy. The novel is a sure-handed and brilliantly told romance.
“Dear Julia,” Rae Summers’ book begins. In a letter to a young woman named Julia from her mother, we learn that the woman Julia’s one-time admirer William has sailed to the Great War; and she has married someone else and moved to America.
Five years later, in 1920’s England, we meet a woman named Rosalie whose blue eyes, fresh good looks and open personality are very much like the long-departed Julia. She finds an unopened letter containing a ring in the rubble of a mantelpiece being torn apart in her home. Fired by the mystery, she tracks down the writer of the letter inside an envelope that bears one word: “Julia.”
From the moment Rosalie and William meet, the sexual tension begins. He is rude; she is stubborn. He turns his back; she returns the next day. Before long, the two are friends--chess opponents and riding partners. But Rosalie finds herself wanting more, even while planning to find a likely match for him among the village’s unmarried girls. “His gaze prickled her skin in a not entirely unpleasant way”. . . .
And author Summers deftly makes sure that even as William begins to lower his stiff reserve, he raises his shield again. “The knot inside him, already pulled taut from long years of habit, tightened painfully.”
Rosalie’s resemblance to his lost love is the fulcrum on which this book is balanced. Is William attracted to Rosalie because she reminds him of Julia? Will Rosalie herself see that her match-making urge with William is a disguise of her own longing for this handsome, brooding man?
Who seduces whom? You will have to read the book to relish the erotic tautness that builds to a climax as these two people at last come together.
The writing is as airy and bright as Rosalie herself. The characters are drawn with the sure strokes of an accomplished author. The pacing is just right, leading us deeper and deeper into the emotions of two sympathetic people. And the ending is as satisfying as any I’ve read. Dear Julia will wedge itself into your heart.

Romancing the Book
Right away you pretty much like Rosalie and her spunky tenacity. Her mother long dead and her father too wrapped up in his writing, Rosalie takes over renovating their newest home and finds a letter to someone who hadn’t opened it, probably because it had fallen behind the mantle. She embarks on a rather quick journey to find the writer and is captivatingly determined to find out what his story is once she finds him.

Rosalie likes fixing things – and people. William doesn’t want to be fixed, but he really doesn’t have much say. He underestimates her one time too many, but is soon just as captivated by her as she is with him.

There are several turns this book could have taken, but I like where it went. I’d love to see a few follow-ups, learn about some of the other characters mentioned as their stories are just begging to be written, and I’d be more than happy to read them!