Canary Island Song by Robin Jones Gunn*A Review

When Carolyn’s grown daughter tells her she needs to “get a life,” Carolyn decides it’s time to step out of her familiar routine as a single woman in San Francisco and escape to her mother’s home in the Canary Islands. Since Carolyn’s mother is celebrating her seventieth birthday, the timing of Carolyn’s visit makes for a perfect surprise.
The surprise, however, is on Carolyn when she sees Bryan Spencer, her high school summer love. It’s been seven years since Carolyn lost her husband, but ever since that tragic day, her life has grown smaller and closed in. The time has come for Carolyn to get her heart back. It takes the gentle affection of her mother and aunts, as well as the ministering beauty and song of the islands to draw Carolyn into the fullness of life. She is nudged along by a Flamenco dance lesson, a defining camel ride and the steady gaze of Bryan’s intense blue-gray eyes.
Is it too late for Carolyn to trust Bryan? Can Carolyn believe that Bryan has turned into something more than the wild beach boy who stole her kisses so many years ago on a balmy Canary night?
Carolyn is reminded that Christopher Columbus set sail from the Canary Islands in 1492 on his voyage to discover the New World. Is she ready to set sail from these same islands to discover her new life?


Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Howard Books; Original edition (July 5, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416583416
ISBN-13: 978-1416583417
Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces

Robin Jones Gunn was born in Wisconsin and lived on a dairy farm until her family moved to southern California when she was five years old. She grew up in Orange County and spent her summers at Newport Beach with friends from her church youth group. After attending Biola University and Capernwray Bible School in Austria, Robin and Ross were married and spent the next two decades working together in youth ministry.
It was the young teens at Robin’s church who challenged her to write stories for them. She hadn’t thought much about being a writer, but took their request to heart and set her alarm for 3am, three days a week. With two small children it was the only time she could find to write the first story about Christy Miller. After two years and ten rejections the novel Summer Promise was accepted for publication in 1988. Robin hasn’t stopped writing since. Over 4 million copies of her 75 books have sold and can be found in a dozen translations all over the world.

Robin and her husband now live in Hawai’i where Ross is a counselor and Robin continues to write to the sound of tropical birds chattering in the palm trees outside her window. Their children are grown but manage to come to the islands with their families every chance they get. Robin's awards include: three Christy awards for excellence in fiction, a Gold Medallion finalist, Mt. Hermon Pacesetter and the Mt. Hermon Writer of the Year award. Robin travels extensively and is a frequent key-note speaker at various events around the world. She serves on the Board of Directors for Media Associates International and Jerry Jenkin’s Christian Writer’s Guild.

Robin by the numbers:
- 25 years of writing for publication
- 4 million copies sold worldwide
- 70 books published
- 51 of those books are novels
- 32 adventure-filled years of marriage
- 3 grown children; a son, a daughter and a daughter-in-law
- 1 cuddly golden retriever named Hula

http://www.robingunn.com/

MY REVIEW
Another wonderful book by Robin Jones Gunn. I love books about mother/daughter relationships and Canary Island Song is just that with romances included.
Carolyn lives in the US, but after being widowed for seven years and different things happening in her life, Carolyn decides to visit her Mom, for her 70th birthday in the Canary Islands. There Carolyn is reunited with her old boyfriend from her teen years and learns some new things and has many adventures.
Carolyn and Bryan are so sweet in their friendship and the things they share. Carolyn was close to the Lord before her husband died and Bryan didn’t want anything to do with the Lord with his former girlfriend before she died. So after their partners died they each responded in a different way. Bryan loves the Lord dearly and Carolyn questions the Lord because her husband was taken. Will Carolyn come to see how much the Lord loves her and can Bryan be the one to show her?
I really love the warm, inviting feel of the Canary Islands I got from reading this book. It made me want to move to a place that has warm, breezes blowing by an ocean and experience the love of a large family and feel wanted and needed. When you read this book you will be swept away to an Island that is charming and full of peace.
I recommend Canary Island Song very much. A five star book for sure. I would love for all of you to enjoy this fantastic story that Robin so masterfully wrote with such descriptive words, that you can see the places in the story so clearly.

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Thanks to the Howard Books for providing this book for review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255