Book Review: Archer’s Voice

I’ve been wanting to read Archer’s Voice by Mia Sheridan for a while, but because I knew it would be an emotional read I kept putting it off. But I finally read it and it was so worth it. Yes, it was emotional and heartbreaking, but it was also beautiful and Archer Hale is everything.

The novel follows Bree, a woman in her early 20s, who arrives in a lake town in Maine after fleeing from tragedy back home in Ohio. The people she meets are nice and friendly, but one young man intrigues her the most. When she runs into him outside the grocery store when she drops her things and she tries to talk to him, but he doesn’t say anything she can’t help but ask around about him. She finds out his name is Archer Hale and he keeps to himself, hardly ever leaving his property to come into town, and can’t speak after a tragedy when he was a child that left his parents dead and him to be raised by his paranoid uncle. The townspeople generally seem regretful that they didn’t help him more when he was a child, but they’ve believed for years that he is simple-minded after what happened to him and/or that he’s a little crazy like the uncle that raised him. Bree wants to get to know Archer anyway, believing that he needs a chance and a friend.

Bree’s late father was deaf so she knows sign language and that is how she gets to know Archer. Their friendship turned romance is so beautiful. The way the town abandoned Archer as a child through inaction and when you find out the details of the tragedy that Archer went through is absolutely heartbreaking. I actually did guess sort of early on what one of the reveals about the tragedy was going to be, but I didn’t mind that I knew the twist – it was just so sad.

But despite the sadness of the book, the love Bree and Archer have for each other is so deep and beautiful that it makes up for all the sadness they have both endured. It is a happy ending and if you buy it, make sure to get the one with the extended epilogue for increased happiness after the emotional rollercoaster of the book.

This is definitely one of my favorite reads of the year and possibly ever.

Read this if you want a steamy, small town romance that will have you reaching for the tissues.

*This post contains affiliate links.*