A Beautiful Life

by Sheila Llanas from the April 5, 2010 issue

Tagline: When the handsome stranger appeared, Sarah wondered if her dream was about to come true...

In A Nutshell: Sarah owns a thrift shop. One of her best customers almost buys a snow globe that Sarah loves because it makes her imagine and hope that her life might end up as perfect as the snow globe scene. The customer's brother comes in. He's inspired by the globe to ask Sarah out on a "date."

Observations: You've heard of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. In Woman's World it's often girl meets boy, girl assumes boy is taken, girl finds out she's wrong, girl dates guy. If you're looking for a formula to follow that WW seems to love, this might be the one.

In My Opinion: I liked the fresh idea of using a snow globe to spark romance, however, there were a few things that detracted from my enjoyment of the story.

There was tad too much description of Nell, the sister/customer, to suit me. Clearly the author wanted to set up a contrast between her and the traditional Sarah, however, this wasn't a story that dwelled on Sarah's character/emotional arc, so this entire paragraph seemed unnecessary.

What I would like to have seen more of was interaction with Sarah and Dan, the hero, and more of Dan, period. One of my goals with heroes is to create one that I'd like to fall in love with, and Dan fell short of that for me. He asks Sarah out, but to go for a walk. I'm like, "Dude. A walk? Seriously?" He doesn't even spring for the bread for the ducks. LOL