Believe it or not there is a story behind me reading this mass market paperback. Because for one, I do not read mass market paperbacks, if I can help it. Actually, at all. The print is too small for my eyesight. Even with glasses.
And for me selecting this book, there is another story behind this, too. Because so many of you have told me that you stay away from her earlier books, and this certainly wasn’t my intent to read one of her earlier books, and in a mass market paperback format.
But…
This is what happened.
I ran out of books.
Yes. It is true.
I know. I have a Little Free Library Shed full of books.
Yes, I have a stacks of books in my garage ready to eventually go into my Little Free Library Shed.
Yes, I have books in my personal library.
Yes, I had finished all my checked-out books from my local library books.
And…
Yes, it was a first for me that this has ever happened.
A first!
So, I had gone out AGAIN to my garage and searched. Was there any book that I had mistakenly put away that I had not read?
And I looked in my discard pile, which are the mass market paperback donations which I do not put in my Little Free Library Shed and give to other LFL’s, and found this one.
Yes, this lone book.
And, that is how I ended up reading this book.
Fortunately, this having no book dilemma lasted only 24 hours. Donations came in, and my local library contacted me with books ordered coming in. And I am once again back with a stack, ready for me to read and eventually review.
But I have to say, it is a terrible business to be in for a book reader to have no books to read. And, I am not one that likes to read them twice. (Unless I forgot that I read them the first time! – and I have had that discussion with some of you, too!)
On to the review…
Where do I begin?
This is a story about family and how they pull together in a terrible crisis. It isn’t a romance, although romance surrounds this story. It is about a husband and his children and how they manage as their wife and her mother struggle as she lays lingering in a coma in a hospital after a tragic fall off a horse.
And while Liam, the husband finds a hidden pillowcase of his wife Mike’s that reveals a lot about the first marriage of hers that she never talked about – including the identity of her husband and the father of the child that Liam has taken on as his own. As the family waits anxiously for her to come back from the coma, she seems to react to the name of her first husband, so Liam thinks that maybe bringing him into the picture might advance her healing.
So Julian willingly comes back. Because you see, Julian, the ex-husband, is also a vain, spoiled, movie star, and he also remembers Kayla (that is what he called her) as the love of his life, that he let get away.
Liam realizes bringing Julian back, might risk Liam’s marriage to Mike, if she eventually wakes up. He has always felt that she has kept something back from him – and now that he knows about Julian, he understands more about her first love.
Liam is an unusual romance hero. He is more the steady and responsible guy. Whereas, Julian is supposedly the compelling and charismatic guy. But Liam has an enormous capacity for love. As readers we are rooting for him.
As readers follow the back story, and recovery, we are uncertain whether we are that enamored with Mike. We recognize that she never fully committed herself to Liam because of her feelings for her first love, Julian. Even considering how he left her.
But, the intention of the story is to watch the growth and change in all the characters.
So…
Did it work?
Is it eventually a happily ever after? - and for whom? (No spoilers from me!)
Cute. Been-here-before. We all know how it is going to end.
Was there something that didn’t work?
There was a silly plot device to have Julian’s character a movie star. It made Mike’s attachment shallow and well Julian, too Hollywood, for lack of a better description.
I’d like to believe that we all have had a first love in our lives – we know that heartache. It didn’t need to have Hollywood looks, et al to get this point across.
So, how did I do with this one?
Come on…folks, it was my only book! I needed to just go with it!
Seriously, no books?
That was not a good moment for me!