The Return by Nicholas Sparks

 

I have never read a Nicholas Sparks book but I have been wanting to for a long time. When the opportunity came up to read The Return, I took it and I'm glad that I did.

Trevor Benson moved back to New Bern, North Carolina after his grandfather passes away. He moves into his house and tends his grandfather's beloved beehives. Trevor was a navy doctor who was devastatingly injured in Afghanistan and is looking forward to becoming a psychiatrist to treat other wounded vets with PTSD--a condition he has also been dealing with. Once in New Bern, he meets a deputy sheriff named Natalie Masterson and feels a connection with her. He also is intrigued by Callie, a teenage neighbor girl who lives down the road. He also is trying to solve a mystery related to his grandfather's death. 

I admired Nicholas Sparks' prose as The Return slowly progressed--in places it seemed lyrical to me. It was also interesting to me to read the book from Trevor's perspective because I don't read a lot of books written by men. In some ways I liked him and felt for him with the struggles that he had faced in life. Yet, at times I was a little put off by his slightly "braggy" attitude and instant attraction to Natalie. I did mostly like Natalie and I could empathize with her struggles and mixed emotions at times as the book went on and I realized how difficult her life was. I found the talk about the bee hives to be quite interesting as I have always wanted to learn more about keeping bees. However, what really kept me reading, was that I wanted to figure out what happened to Trevor's grandfather in that he died in a place he hadn't been before. I actually did have that mostly figured out. I struggled to like Callie but I could understand her actions too by the end of the book. All in all, I was glad that I read The Return. I didn't really feel like there was a lot of romance so to speak as there was a lot of other things going on in the book that I felt took my attention. However, I did like the ending of The Return all the way around. I was also glad that the cussing was limited to a couple of mild words and the sex was minimal since I usually read fairly clean books. 

I received a copy of this book at no charge from the publisher. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.