Book Review: Playing with Heartstrings by Lydia Winters

Title: Playing with Heartstrings

Author: Lydia Winters

Publisher: Snowflake Press

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Playing with Heartstrings revolves around Sienna, a teen girl who placed her son up for adoption. Two years later, Sienna is in college studying music and meets Aaron. An attraction forms between the two, but their budding relationship is threatened by Aaron’s view on adoption and how he resents his birth mother for giving him up. As Sienna struggles with her secret, she wonders if her relationship with Aaron will survive once the truth comes out.

I loved how the author explored the subject of adoption from both sides. I liked Sienna’s explanation of why she chose to place her son, Hunter up for adoption and I also liked how she had an open adoption and how she got to spend time with Hunter. In the scenes with her and Hunter, you can feel how hard the adoption was on her, yet in her heart she knew she did the right thing and Hunter was with the right family. As for Aaron, he himself was adopted and he feels like an outcast in his family, throughout the story you see examples of how his family treats him differently and understand why he feels the way he does. Aaron feels resent me towards his birth mother and doesn’t understand why she gave him up, and he sets out to find answers.

Throughout the story, Sienna struggles with when and how to tell Aaron. I understood she was scared and worried how he would react, the more she put it on hold I wanted to yell at her to “just tell him already.”

Aside from the adoption issue, there were other obstacles in Sienna and Aaron’s relationship. One was Jared, a guy Sienna was seeing before she met Aaron. Jared was a great guy and even though he and Sienna weren’t exclusive, I felt bad when Sienna broke up with him. Another person who causes trouble for Sienna and Aaron is Dane, Sienna’s ex-boyfriend and father of her child, who contacts Sienna about wanting to see Hunter.

My main critique with the story is the ending; I thought the last chapter wrapped everything up too quickly. For instance, it mentioned Aaron meeting his birth mother and instead of just mentioning in a paragraph, I would’ve loved to have seen that scene play out.

Other than that, Playing with Heartstrings is a cute, romance story that will tug at your heartstrings.

Rating: 4 stars 

Author's Site: http://www.lydia-winters.com/

Purchase Link:  http://amzn.to/1MvRWg0