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August 8, 2022

Bend Toward the Sun by Jen Devon ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts


A gorgeous, emotional love story about taking unexpected paths, accepting loss, and finding strength in the transformative power of love.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A free book was provided for an honest review.

book cover of women's fiction novel Bend Toward the Sun by Jen Devon
August 2022; Griffin; 978-1250822000
audio, ebook, print (384 pages); women's fiction

Two emotionally damaged people meet at a party.  Neither enjoys small talk or being around other people.  But there is something about them both that begins to draw them together.  Will their pasts keep them from developing a relationship?

Rowan doesn't believe in love.  She never got anything from her emotionally negligent mother and was emotionally abused by her former fiancé.   When her doctoral thesis in botany is not approved and she's told it needs more work, she leaves Cornell and goes to stay with two friends in Pennsylvania.  Her plans are to do more research and get approval for her thesis.  But life sometimes has other plans and when she attends a party at a farm - soon to be a winery, she is enthralled by the owners and their large family as well as by the beauty of the land. She's offered a job at the winery to use her botany degree to help the family take care of the vines.  Plus she meets a member of the family, Harrison and there are immediate sparks between them.  Harry has been away from home for five years of schooling to become a doctor.  When he loses his first patient, he begins to wonder if he's really cut out to be a doctor.  The loss of the patient affects him so much that he has panic attacks when he is around blood.

These two broken people, Rowan and Harry, begin to spend more time together.  He is falling in love with her and based on her past, she is just as busy pushing him away.  Will they both be able to grow from their pasts and fall in love or will their pasts continue to control their futures?

Bend Toward the Sun was a great book to read.  The two main characters are very well written and the plot of the novel keeps the story moving.  Two other items make this book even better:  The main characters' family is a large and fun family.  The way the brothers fight with each other is often very funny and provides some comic relief.  Plus the description of the winery and the land surrounding it are beautiful  I've visited in that area and thought it was beautiful and the author made it come to life again.

This is a debut novel by Jen Devon and I look forward to whatever she writes in the future.

Buy Bend Toward the Sun at Amazon


Susan Roberts grew up in Michigan but loves the laid-back life at her home in the Piedmont area of North Carolina where she is two hours from the beach to the east and the mountains in the west.  She reads almost anything but her favorite genres are Southern Fiction and Historical Fiction.  You can connect with her on Facebook,



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