I am SO excited! I came home from errands this afternoon and found this waiting in my email—an industry review from Publishers Weekly Booklife for A SMILE IN A WHISPER—and as soon as I spotted that little Booklife lightning bolt, I knew! It received AN EDITOR’S PICK, Booklife’s equivalent to a starred review!

The review is incredible! Here’s an excerpt:

“Middleton (author of The Certainty of Chance) spices this dual-timeline teen and second-chance romance with heaps of Scottish character and a deeply compassionate approach to challenges in physical and mental health.

Middleton does a lovely job blending romance beats with the vividly realized setting, enticing readers with memorable local dialect and charming traditions like the annual Christmas Ba’ game, all captured in brisk, buoyant prose that lights up the characters’ inner lives…She also rousingly dramatizes teen life for an adult audience, with aspects like the coveting of magazine centrefolds, group meetups at public events, rapid-fire changes in social dynamics, and lack of adult supervision all hitting a nostalgic sweet spot. Evie’s Crohn’s diagnosis is treated realistically in terms of teen embarrassment and implications for her social life, and nicely balanced with Nick’s secrecy about his own panic attacks.

Takeaway: Buoyant second-chance romance with Scottish flavor.”

There’s much more, too! If you want to read the entire thing, click here.

I love this story. I love Evie and Nick and Orkney with my entire soul, and I am beyond thrilled and so full of gratitude for this beautiful review!