Rachel Blakely’s a busy woman, dealing with her career as an editor in a small Kentucky town with mysterious goings-on that threatens to derail plans for the local celebration of the Derby. This is another interesting story about love, trust, and relationships by an author with a sensitivity to the intricacies of making a real connection between people. Can they do that honestly? Is he hiding something from her? Does she trust too much or too little? “It’s complicated,” is an easy way to dodge giving away the outcome of this story.

Despite her wary nature and the events unfolding around them, Rachel and her mystery man, Jairo Aquino, are forced to confront each other. A woman trying to make a life for herself, she’s alone but wants more.

Like so many of Stephany Tullis’ characters, her heroine’s wounded. In walks a handsome, blue-eyed man with plenty of mystery of his own, and irresistibly attractive to the wary, ain’t-no-fool Rachel Blakely. But having read it, I feel that I know the area well - not so much because of the descriptions but through the well-chosen details and the author’s eye (and ear) for character.

To say I’m unfamiliar with Kentucky would be a complete understatement, so I was grateful for the glossary at the front of the book. That said, there was adequate compensation in the way that Stephany Tullis introduces us to a range of characters - many of whom I’m sure I’ll meet in my future reading - and sets out her fictional landscape, with considerable skill. With the restrictions of a shorter length, the complications of the romance are inevitably limited, and I felt that the story was perhaps a little light on plot. Missing Pieces is a romantic novella, in which editor of the local paper, Rachel Blakely, falls for Jairo Aquina, the mysterious (and possibly undesirable) stranger in town. It’s the first in what’s described as a multi-branded author series (which I take to be a series written by ore than one author) and introduces us to the residents of the fictional town of Chandlerville, in Kentucky. I thoroughly enjoyed Stephany Tullis’s Missing Pieces.

Missing Pieces by Stephany Tullis