My Valentine Seduction: Love Comes Later Book 3 by Serenity Woods

This is simply a lovely book. My Valentine Seduction is the third book in Woods’ series, “Love Comes Later,” about three thirty-something friends running a software business in New Zealand and how they found love. This book concerns Teddi who is blind and depressed on New Year’s Eve remembering her former boyfriend who had died four years ago. She ends up talking with Ethan whom she knows online since he plays the game that had made Teddi’s business a fortune. He doesn’t know that she’s one of the heads of the company or that she’s blind. He’s also depressed that New Year’s Eve thinking of his beloved wife who died two years ago leaving him to figure out how to be a good father to their two daughters.

I hadn’t thought I’d enjoy a book about a blind woman, but Woods handles Teddi’s blindness with such insight and care that I wondered if the author knows someone who is blind. Either that or she is overestimating how independently a totally blind person can live. Ethan is a totally real character. He’s a fireman and he’s having trouble coping with his nine-year old daughter who is still full of pain and anger over her mother’s death. He enjoys his late-night conversations with Teddi, but has honest worries about falling for a blind woman and the difficulties that might bring into his already difficult life. And he also isn’t comfortable being with a woman who is so very much richer than he is.

Their romance takes a long time to become a sexual one. Instead they take the time to become really good friends while they get to know each other. That seems so rare in romance books these days. But it also seems much more real than these books where the H and h take one look at each other and immediately fall in lust and love simultaneously. Real relationships don’t begin like that so it’s nice to see a relationship develop from late-night online conversations and to know that Teddi can’t see Ethan so she’s falling for the person he is rather than for his hunky fireman’s body. Of course, they do end up having a very satisfying sexual relationship, but that isn’t what binds them together.

Another thing I appreciated was Ethan’s lingering love for his wife. Too often with the H having had a wife who died, she is painted as someone with lots of flaw without whom he’s much better off. Instead, she seems to have been a wonderful woman and mother and he is lost without her. He also just misses the everyday comfort of being part of a couple. That seems a much more realistic portrayal of a widower’s grief. If anything, the book paints a much less sympathetic picture of Teddi’s former partner who was the twin brother of one the other owners of the company. In her memories, he comes off as a rather selfish, careless man.

I’ve really enjoyed this series. I was given a free review copy in exchange for an honest review, but I would have happily paid to read the book.