Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over
When I need a break, a good read I can count on for an interesting story but nothing too heavy, I turn to Harlequin. I’ve been doing this since I was in my mid-teens. That’s right: Catcher in the Rye balanced by any number of Harlequin romances. With James A. Michener’s The Source, I read a chapter, read a romance, read a chapter (back when I was fifteen, I think). It isn’t that I dislike heavier books, but it’s more that I need a bigger beat difference, a rest between, and that’s something a Harlequin romance supplies.
Why am I bothering to tell you this? Well, that’s exactly what happened. The next book on my list is a philosophical historical, and I didn’t feel like it yet. So I skipped ahead to Brenda Jackson and Canyon to get exactly what I was hoping for.
This is not the first Brenda Jackson novel I’ve read, and though I can’t figure out in which, I’ve met Canyon and Keisha before as well. I’ve already read the event from three years ago that is so critical in Canyon, and I knew it couldn’t end as it did, with Keisha walking out of his life believing he’d slept with her best friend even though that’s what had happened in the previous read.
Canyon, the novel not the male main character, is about what happens when Keisha returns three years later, and he realizes he’s not as ready to walk away as he’d thought. Only there’s more going on than he can imagine, which he discovers when, having given up trying the polite approach, he decides to follow her home, confront her, and force her to believe that whatever her friend told her, and however it appeared, he did not sleep with Bonita.
It only takes a glimpse of Beau to realize the two-year-old boy with Keisha is his. And this is where the story begins.
Until this point (very early in the book), it was a simple misunderstandings plot with Canyon the injured, but determined, party. Once Beau is introduced, the story gets much more complex, and both Canyon and Keisha say things they don’t really mean as they try to work through anger and mistrust.
It’s further complicated by an element of suspense, one that offers a reason to throw the two even closer together and is well seeded with possibilities to explore.
Canyon isn’t an earth-shattering novel, but it isn’t meant to be. I found a story about interesting people, the chaos of a loving extended family in the Westmorelands, and a situation in which both Canyon and Keisha had to grow up a bit so that the past no longer controlled them. The circumstances are a little bizarre at times, but in such a way that never disrupted my enjoyment.
For those concerned about misunderstanding novels, Brenda Jackson is a master. There’s no chance of “talking to each other” clearing this particular air. In fact, they have already talked, and talk again about their issues several times in Canyon. The misunderstandings here aren’t based in a simple event. They are laced through with complicated histories and “seeing is believing” issues. It’s not just that they have to learn to trust, that they have to acknowledge appearances can be deceiving, but mostly that they need to recognize how the situation would have been with them on the other side. It’s a wonderful take on how people overcomplicate their own lives and often have trouble backing away from that once they’ve begun.
Brenda Jackson delivers on the romance, but she takes her books a step further. Canyon is no exception, and I’m glad I had this title on my list to read.
P.S. I read Canyon as a NetGalley ARC in return for an honest review.