Forever Friday

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Author: Timothy Lewis

Pages: 288

I received this book for free from Waterbrook Multnomah publisher in exchange for an honest review.

From the back cover:

Every Friday, a postcard.
Every Friday, a love poem.
Every Friday for sixty years.

Adam Colby is just doing his job, sorting through the unsold Alexander belongings after the estate sale. He is unprepared for what he finds in an old photo album, overlooked by the bargain hounds and treasure hunters—six decades of postcards and poems from Gabe Alexander to his wife, Pearl. The mystery of the Alexanders’ love entices Adam, a man unhinged by divorce and puzzled by the depth of commitment that he finds in the unabashedly romantic cards.

Forever Friday invites you to travel back in time to the early twentieth century Texas Coastal Bend where a young couple—Gabe and Pearl Alexander—are swept up in a miraculous love. As the heartwarming, pulse-quickening story of their relationship develops through Gabe’s poems, the Alexanders reveal a new way to consider what it means to be truly devoted to each other. Could the secrets of their love affair, laid to rest twenty years ago, hold the key to one man’s future?

Review:

The story was written in two different settings. One was when Gabe and Pearl’s relationship and their story set both in the past and in the present as Pearl (aka “Huck”) was in a nursing home and dying. The other was Adam’s story as he discovered the postcards and sought to learn the story behind them. I really liked that the story jumped back and forth because rather than a passive voice of Yvette telling their Gabe and Huck’s story, it allowed you to experience their love story with them.

I loved the romance in the story and the way that Gabe was so intentional about keeping romance alive. He seemed to always be doing something sweet for Huck... He was very invested in their marriage. For a successful relationship both people have to be truly invested and "two hearts commanding love" like Gabe and Huck rather than “two hearts demanding love” like Adam and his ex-wife. They actively loved each other than were very intentional about it.

The point was made a few times in the book that part of the secret for a happy marriage was Gabe and Huck’s mutual faith in God and their constant hope for the future. This should have been the entire point of the book and while I think Timothy Lewis might have understood that this was the secret to a happy marriage, he got caught up in the romance of the story like so many of us tend to do in our own stories and our own lives. You can keep the romance alive; however, big romantic gestures are not the secret to a happy marriage. The secret to a happy marriage is a deep abiding faith in God that takes you through the hard times and a hope that a better day is coming. That faith and hope, sprinkled with big (or sometimes the small ones are best) romantic gestures keep true love alive.

I really enjoyed this book and enjoyed this story. I just think that Timothy Lewis failed to support with his story the whole point that he was trying to make. Regardless, I would read another book by this author and I would still recommend this book.