Everyone loves a good love story. The stories that make you feel warm all over. The kind that leaves you the slightest bit envious because the story belongs to someone else and not you. The stories that make your heart race and on the edge of pain and pleasure. Pain because your heart hurts and pleasure because your heart hurts. An unlikely combination, yet, that’s the stuff good love stories are made of.Ours could have been like that. We could have made a beautiful love story.
But when he was ready for that epic love story, I was afraid to fall in love, too hurt by my past to trust anyone. Then, when I was ready for the epic love story, he was gone.
And I was alone.
And the only thing I got was the pain.
It was time I told him the things that were in my heart but too afraid to say out loud.
I wrote the letter I needed to write and prayed it wasn’t too late.
Dear Charlie,
You were right. I was wrong. I’ve never been more wrong in my life.
There – I said it.
I’ll say it a million times if you just come back to me.
Come back to me. Please!
I was so wrong. I do love you.
Sophie
Prologue
I grew up in Alabama and have always been an avid reader. I had a stack of those Little Golden Books and I can remember reading Three Little Kittens over and over and over again. It was my favorite.Fast forward and the older I got the more in love books I became. So, I’m admitting that I am a huge nerd. The only reading I don’t like are those math word problems. And I’m okay with that because no one has ever asked me in real life… “If I give you two bananas and take away six apples, how long will it take the southbound train to collide with the northbound train if Johnny left his house at midnight?” It just doesn’t happen.
So, yeah, books are my thing.
Oh, and writing. I love to write. So, I did. Write, I mean. And when I was finished I had a story in front of me about a girl named Lily, and a guy named Cooper. And when I reached the end, I felt – lost. Like, I was saying good-bye to old friends. It snuck up on me and I realized I wasn’t ready to let go. It was then I decided that I needed to keep writing – keep telling stories – and hopefully some other people may enjoy them as well.
This book moved me so much, with just the right words; written with restraint and class but at the same time so absorbing and passionate. When I heard about Back to Yesterday, I was eager to read it. Because this book, even if it could be read as a standalone, it took all its signification when you’ve had already read the stolen Breaths series. This book is the heart, the soul of the entire series, bringing everything together.
I have a book hangover, and it’s almost 2am here and I couldn’t get Charles and Sophie out of my mind.
What is fascinating with writing? The power of words, how just some sentences written on the paper could make you travel to another world, another time, when a love story defied time and space.
I was transported to another world, during the WWII, where two young and so full of life people met. Reading about how these two fall in love made my heart burst, really. A transcendent romance, with two broken souls traumatized by the issue of war and the uncertainties of this time.
Sophie was hurt in her past and had abandonment issues. Behind her tough behavior and free spirit mind, this beautiful waitress was deeply affected and guarded, until a young man, Charles, the sweet and determined pilot, came into her life.
She was such a spitfire, going from one feeling to another, charming and mesmerizing everyone around her.
Charles won me from the first time. Sincere, caring and not afraid to show how he felt. Just my kind of guy. His words were just music to my ears and I enjoyed every thoughts, prayers or declaration of his undenying love for Sophie. Completely smitten. Reading about this man in love and determined to win her over was just magnificent. His battles, aspirations and fears were intense and passionate.
The building of their relationship was told in a very refreshing way, making me rooting for this couple, smiling and at times almost crying.
The story was told in dual POV, through the past and present, giving us all the range of emotions of the characters with the intensity of the time, in the times of War, where people had to fight for their freedom, with this ray of hope, with the little you had, that the ones who got away made it back home.
This reading was a really surprising experience, I really felt like I was living into this period. Feeling it all, like I was sensing it. When you had also music in the mix, I was definitely lost into this world, where only Charles and Sophie’s love and hope for each other was my safe board.
Communicating through letters have such intensity, material to the drama, like we had to hold on this lifeline of words.
I wanted to thank this author for the wonderful gift she made to her readers. I knew Sophie’s story was was something, but this book exceeded all my expectations. A heart warming story, written with love. True love never dies for sure and Pamela Sparkman proved it with Back to Yesterday.
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