Sweetest in the Gale

Written by: Olivia Dade
Reviewed by: Mary Warren

This book is a collection of 3 short stories.

Sweetest in the Gale, is a sweet love story between Candy and Griff. Both of them are English teachers at Marysburg high school. Each of them are dealing with some form of grief in their lives. In this story, they learn to let each other in, help each other on the path to healing and fall in love somewhere along the way.

Unraveled, is more of a case of opposite attracts. After the art teacher at Marysburg High is mysteriously let go, Poppy takes the role as the new art teacher. Math teacher Simon is brought on to mentor her. Though they are about as different as math and art, somewhere along the way they fall in love.

Cover Me is about Elizabeth who has lost her insurance and finds herself in the middle of a cancer scare. Her best friend James asks her to marry him so that he can take care of her and get her insurance. She begrudgingly accepts. Unfortunately for this “fake” marriage, there are some feelings that have been buried since their years as college roommates, and in resolving these feelings, they find love.

I enjoyed reading these short stories, but they aren’t my favorite works fromOlivia Dade. The stories were sweet and very well written; my only problem is that I wanted more. I was just starting to really connect to these characters, and then the story was over, and I was left wanting to know more about how their stories ended. So if my only complaint is that I wanted to stay in their worlds a little bit longer, I’m not sure that really counts as a negative.