Book Review: Dear Stranger

Title: Dear Stranger
Author: Winter Renshaw
Genre: Romance, Fiction

What It’s About: Tenley Bayliss is married to her job as a lawyer in Sapphire Shores, Maine, where she has grown up. She had dedicated herself to becoming a lawyer because of her own mother, who had struggled to provide for her, but found help from a charity that helped her become a paralegal and then a lawyer. Tenley is in the running for partnership at the firm, where she had dedicated herself to her work, working long hours. In the running alongside her is a different lawyer, Brooks Gentley, who Tenley writes off as a schmoozer, getting close to the partners without having the same kind of work ethic as her. They are suddenly forced to work together when the partners cannot decide which one of them to go with, and so they have the two of them work on a case.

At night, they both talk to a stranger on an app called Blind Love, where they can’t share numbers or pictures until 90 days worth of conversations are done. They keep the streak going, only because they find each other charming.

As Tenley and Brooks work together on the assigned case, their iciness towards each other thaws out. Brooks manages their client’s emotions around their divorce and children, while Tenley is the one that finds the information that they need to bring the divorce into their client’s favor. Tenley also helps out at the charity that helped out her mother, and runs into a woman who turns out to be none other than Brooks’s own sister. Tenley finds this out when she goes to the address provided by the woman, and finds Brooks with a kid. It is Brooks that tells her that his sister has been lying to her—that the reason that she had lost her house is because she was negligent and left a candle on, not because she was baking or liked to cook—and tells Tenley that he appreciates that she wanted to help his sister out with the money, but to keep the money. It is then that Tenley realizes that Brooks had taken off during their partnership due to his sick newphew, not because of his own child, as she had mistakenly believed.

Eventually, Tenley puts it together that the stranger that she has been talking to on the app is none other than Brooks, so she reveals herself to him one evening after they worked late on the case. Brooks doesn’t have an issue with them, as he has genuinely come to like her, but Tenley runs away. They have to work through their feelings towards one another, and Brooks realizes that he wants Tenley more than he wants the promotion, seeing as the added time would interfere with his care of his nephew while his sister gets her act together. So he withdraws his application, and tells the partners to choose Tenley.

When they go to the office to also let the partners know that they are together as it could be a conflict of interest, no one can get into the office. Brooks finds out on his way to the office that two of the partners stole the company’s funds and ran away, which means that the company will have to close and they will be out of a job. Tenley is not extremely upset about it because she realizes that she hasn’t been happy in this job in a long while.

Brooks gets an offer in Chicago, and when he asks Tenley to come with him, she tells him that her whole life is here. They go separate ways, as she pushes him away, but Brooks comes back to her and tells her that he wants her, not some fancy job in Chicago, so wherever she is, that is where he is. Tenley, in the meantime, starts a role as an Assistant Director at the charity that she has been working with, and expands the program to get more lawyers to assist with different cases.

Five years later, they are married with a child on the way, and Tenley now works as the Director of the woman’s organization that helped her mom get on her feet as a single mother. Brooks and Tenley attend a surprise baby shower for her at Brooks’s sister’s house—she had gotten married and is also expecting her second child with her husband.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book in the series as well. I loved the character building and the growth of the relationship between Tenley and Brooks from rival lawyers to lovers. The way that they complement each other in personality both at work and at home is wonderful to see, and I did enjoy them coming to the realization that being a lawyer isn’t all that they’ve wanted—there are other, far more important things that matter to them. Overall, a fun read!