A ride and a love story

Ninety-one-year-old Ira Levinson crashes his car going around an icy curve. His car goes down a snow packed embankment and his injuries make him unable to get out of the car. Besides the snow, the road is isolated and Ira fears that he won't be found.  He feels helpless but is visited by the spirit of his late wife, Ruth.

 The novel tells two stories that are interwoven around each other. In the second story, Sophia Danks, a college student interested in art history falls in love with a cowboy who is a bull rider. His name is Luke and these seemingly unlikely pair fall in love.

Like many of Nicholas Sparks's books,. there is detailed descriptions of the characters and their lives. In Ira's case, we observe his father's haberdashery business and how Ira falls in love with Ruth from the moment she comes into the store to buy a hat for her father. Her family was from Vienna and we also learn that those who were left behind were facing the persecution of the Jews under Hitler.

Many of Sparks's novels have been turned into films and it is easy for the reader to close their eyes and imagine the action unfolding on a screen before them.

There are no surprises and some of the action seems like it's been done before but still an enjoyable novel and a fine romance, just right for romantic literature fans.