The Fortune Teller's Promise by Kelly Heard

☆☆1/2
Kindle Edition, 290 pages
Published October 30th 2019 by Bookouture
About the Book:
Counting things in threes usually calms Dell’s crippling anxiety—the passionflower vine along the shop wall, the jimsonweed by the roadside, the sleeping valley in the distance—but when her baby daughter goes missing, her world shatters completely. 1979, Virginia. Growing up amongst the sprawling valleys and forests of Blyth, beautiful young Dell has always had a natural intuition for how to fix other people’s hurts, if not her own. She hopes for a better future, although thanks to her alcoholic father and narcissistic mother, happiness seems far out of her reach. She certainly could never have predicted holding her baby girl for the first time, and the life-changing, powerful love she would feel when she did. Even as a heartbroken single mother in a small town riddled with gossips, she suddenly feels that she can do this. She can raise her daughter. But when she turns to her own mother for help, her mother convinces her that the child would be better off with another family. With nobody to fight her corner, Dell must watch the local church take the baby away, leaving her alone and completely devastated. Dell feels there’s nothing left for her in her tiny hometown but heartache and shattered dreams, and so she flees, vowing never to go back. It finally seems like luck is on her side when she finds a small shop for rent, overlooking the peaceful Shenandoah Valley. This quiet corner of paradise feels like the perfect place to heal and use her gift to help others heal, too. Until Dell’s mother tracks her down to deliver crushing news—her baby girl is missing. Dell knows she won’t find out where her child is in the stars or on her palms. Instead, she must do the one thing she promised she never would. She must return to Blyth. Will what Dell finds there finally heal her fragile heart, or break it into a thousand irreparable pieces?

An OK second-chance romance...it wasn’t what I was expecting. Dell’s voice was easy to read and I read this book in a couple sittings, but I think I was just hoping for more. I enjoyed the story, but it was a little too predictable, I guess that was the point though. The labor and death scene was a cliche to me, also, I disliked that we didn't get any kind of feel for Dell's family, as there was hardly any detail at all.

My problem with the book was the lack of depth in the characters, and unnatural speed and ease of some situations. The characters were more caricatures. Overly exaggerated stars and palm readings and stereotypical cliches filled the pages, not to mention the many unrealistic outcomes. Yes there's definitely the love story also, but that seemed to take forever and while the story was well written, it left me feeling a little unfulfilled.

Thank you NetGalley, Kelly Heard and Bookouture for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an impartial review; all opinions are my own.

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