Heading Home by Renee Riva book review

 I now have a new author that I love, Renee Riva. She writes humorous stories with a message, for both children and adults. Having been raised in a large Italian family with a great sense of humor, she has much to draw from for developing quirky characters. She shares her secrets for story starters at Young Author events, helping to spark the imagination of young minds. A former greeting-card verse writer and popular speaker, Renee has two published picture books for children, and a trilogy for general audiences, ages 12 to one-hundred. Renee and her husband live in Richland, Washington, with their three daughters, a dog, a cat, and a baby box turtle named Buster.
  Here is a video snippet of her book, Heading Home.

Heading Home, by Renee Riva from David C. Cook on Vimeo.

 From her website: 

HEADING HOME is here! Book three in the Saving Sailor trilogy. A.J. finally makes it back to Indian Island at age 18 to attend veterinarian school...and guess who owns the island? A.J.'s childhood friend, Danny, who is now 21 years-old, and planning to turn Indian Island into a summer Youth Camp. But he's in for quite a surprise when he tries to convince A.J. to be part of his plan. Through some hilarious twists and turns of fate, the once quiet island paradise turns to utter chaos when the Italians, Greeks, and Southerners all descend upon its shores together!

My take on the book:

I loved this book! The content of the book is such that a young adult could read it as well as adults. I love a book that I can read and let my teens read, too.  Renee shows great respect for family values and what is proper behavior between a man and woman before marriage.  

We've all heard the cliche that "home is where the heart is" and that is made clear in this book. Home is where your love is and I loved learning about the love between A.J., Danny and their families.  They both shared a history together as friends and then A.J. moved away with her family for 8 years to Italy.  During that time, Danny kept her dog, Sailor, and they both exchanged "snail mail".  This was all before text messages, email and Facebook!  

 This was book three and the end of the series. I was hesitant in reading it before reading the first two book.  I don't like reading out of order. Time was an issue so I jumped in and read! I was able to keep up with the story line.  She fed in the story line of the past books but not so much that I couldn't follow the story.  

A.J. returned to her U.S. home with plans that were different than Danny had expected.  Together they worked through their dreams, dealt with many quirky family issues and in the end, family triumphed!  This book gets my first ever "warm and fuzzy" award!   

Thanks to B & B Media Group, Inc. for sending me the book to review. The words expressed on my take of the book are all my opinion.