Reviewed by Donna
TITLE: Mi Familia
SERIES: Sequel to Siempre
AUTHOR: Tessa Cárdenas
PUBLISHER: Dreamspinner Press
LENGTH: 200 Pages
BLURB:
Three years after starting their life together, Jamie and Sean decide the time is right to expand their family. Preparing to adopt, they cross their Ts and dot their Is. But nothing can quite prepare them for Angel and his sister, Margarita.
After over a year in foster care, Angel, eight, and Margarita, four, are hesitant to trust their new dads. Angel doesn’t believe they will follow through with the adoption, and Margarita, scared, refuses to speak. While the process seems slow, Jamie and Sean are happy to take their time winning the kids over. But when the siblings’ foster mother takes a fall and can no longer care for them, Jamie and Sean rush to take on parental duties they don’t feel ready for. Even as they work to finalize the adoption, life continues to throw them curve balls, and the happy couple worries they aren’t doing enough to save their fledgling family.
REVIEW:
If you have yet to read the first book in this series, Siempre, then this review will contain a few spoilers
Mi Familia picks up the story of Jamie and Sean three years after they first became a couple and a few months after their marriage. Although Jamie remains estranged from his parents and siblings the two men are still surrounded by some of the best friends a person could ask for and they have made the decision that it’s time to expand their little family.
Enter Angel and Margarita, a brother and sister who have spent the last year being shuffled from one foster home to another after the death of their mother. Although Sean and Jamie had planned to adopt one child the two big hearted men are incapable of saying no once the idea of taking siblings to enable the kids to stay together is brought up between them. From the moment the men are presented with files on Angel and Margarita they know that they’ll do whatever it takes to give these two lost little kids the new family that they desperately need.
When I read Siempre I’ll admit I wasn’t sold on Jamie. Sean I loved immediately but liking Jamie took effort on my part and at some points I did wonder if it was worth it. By the end of the book I was happy enough with the men being together but I wasn’t convinced that they would manage to remain together mainly because of the pressure of Jamie’s religious family. But I liked that first book well enough that I was keen to read this sequel once I knew it existed. And I’m so very glad I did.
The tone of Mi Familia is totally different from Siempre. Whereas book #1 felt loaded with emotional pain, book #2, to me at least, had more of a positive vibe. It was about hope and love and while Jamie and Sean have disagreements as all couples do, you can feel just how solid their relationship is.
The drama in the story comes from normal life situations as our MCs struggle to learn how to be parents to two slightly life-damaged children. And honestly I think these are two of the best done fictional children that I’ve read in a while. Lets face it, little kids can often make an otherwise fantastic story totally unbearable but these kids were a huge part of the story and I enjoyed the way they interacted with the adults.
There is also appearances from characters we both loved (Alana & Travis) and hated (Lupe) from the first book.
If you read Siempre then I would say this is a no brainer, Mi Familia is a must read. If you haven’t read Siempre you could still read this second book, and you’ll probably still enjoy it but you won’t appreciate the preexisting relationships that are introduced in the first book.
Now what I’m really hoping for is for the author to decide that Isaac requires his own story and life will be great.
RATING: 
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