Love in the Afternoon

A Dove Pond Novella

By: Karen Hawkins

Narrated by: George Newbern, Tavia Gilbert, Danny Campbell

Length: 3 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

A woman with a legendary green thumb, a man living in an emotional desert, and a small boy unable to connect with others. Can the three of them, with a little help from the charmed town of Dove Pond (and a pesky ghost), turn a nightmare into a fairytale and forge their own happily ever after?
 

Young widow Sofia Rodriquez has just accepted the position of greenhouse manager for Ava Dove’s booming herbal tea business. Sofia is delighted to have found a job that will make use of her gardening skills and allow her to spend time with her son, Noah, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s. Adding to her joy is the charming farmhouse she’s renting on the edge of Dove Pond.
 

The only cloud on Sofia’s horizon is her next door neighbor, Jake, whose yard is a thorny jungle worthy of Sleeping Beauty. Soon enough, Sofia discovers that Jake himself is just as thorny and unpleasant as his yard.
 

After his fiancé left him, work-from-home IT whiz and game developer Jake Klaine has gone from Prince Charming to complete hermit. But Jake isn’t really alone; he’s living with a ghost: a (formerly) hairy man named Doyle who’s a fan of bad puns and who refuses to leave Jake’s bathtub. This is nothing new for Jake, as he’s been talking to ghosts since he was a boy. He finds real people harder to deal with, like the kid next door who won’t stop bugging him about the new game he’s developing.
 

Sofia and Jake know all too well that life isn’t a game. They’ve both lost the person they loved most. But under the watchful eye of the ghostly Doyle and Sofia’s new friend Ava, who has abilities of her own, Jake and Sofia decide to take a chance and let in an outsider. Soon they discover that, with a little magic, even the thorniest walls are no match for the innocent trust of a lonely child and the fierce determination of a woman wielding a razor-sharp pruner and a heart big enough to make even the most stubborn flower bloom. 

©2019 Karen Hawkins. All rights reserved. (P)2019 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Don’t pass this up

This novella has moved up into my top five for the year. Not sure where to place it because the year isn’t over but I will be thinking about this story and smiling for a long time.
Some of us communicate easier than others and a little understanding goes a long way. There is a lot of goodness in this story but it is not sappy. It is funny, touching, and insightful.

sweet love story

interesting storyline. likeable characters. love the wig. I'd like to move to a place like Dove pond.

Damn if Doyle didn’t make me cry

How can a book with no climax be so good???? Now I’ll have to read Last Chance Motel and hopefully it holds me over until The Secret Recipe of Ella Dove.

Decent, but expensive for a novella

This was pretty good, but after book 1, i expected another book of a similar length. I’m not happy having paid $10 for a 3-hr book.

Disappointed

I didn’t feel it had the same charm as the first in the series. And I personally wasn’t a fan of the narrators

Great Novella

I enjoyed The Book Charmer, so I picked this one up to try out. Very good light hearted story. I'd recommend to anyone.

Good story

I liked the characters and the storyline adding more people to the Dove Pond population
I also find it too short for my liking
It was nice to find a Spanish character and her particular son.

MUCH BETTER Than I Had Hoped For!

I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting much from this book, but I had enjoyed “The Book Charmer,” by this same author (I listened to that book three times BTW), that I thought, “This one sounds kind of dumb, but I’ll listen anyway…”

I’m so glad I did! The book was so much better than I had held out hope for! The ghost, Doyle made me laugh every time he appeared! Jake and his reactions to Doyle made me laugh too. I found myself thinking throughout the book thinking, “TELL HER HOW YOU FEEL YOU IDIOT!”

As the mother of a handicapped child and a special education, I could relate DO MUCH to both Sophia and her son Noah and the individual struggles they face every day…

I agree with Sophia…a quiet, thoughtful, understanding, gentle, patient man, one who is not flashy and disappears like a rabbit tge at the first sign of difficulty, but one who is there every day for all the nitty-gritty day-to-day minutia of life is worth his weight in gold! The fact that Jake has all those attributes AND is wealthy to boot, makes me wonder when my own very own dragon slayer will be riding in! (:

From the title details, this book sounded like it was going to be cheesy and sappy (and as a realist and as pragmatic as one can get), I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it much, but because of who the author is, I decided to give it a chance. Karen Hawkins did NOT let me down!

My only (general) complaint is why can’t Jake’s same voice be used when the character is talking to Doyle and himself as when he’s speaking to Sophia. When speaking to Sophia, he sounds very wimpy and effeminate.

Dove pond series

I love this series and I hope there are many more books to follow. There are lots of Dove sisters so I’m hoping for much more. Any story that starts with talking to ghosts and I’m all in!! I also work with kids with special needs so this short story had the elements I love.

I love this series.

I love it. ghosts, love, mystery and real life struggles. It wasn't hard . nice to snuggle up to and lesson to after a long day.