Somewhere Between
Luck and Trust
By Emilie Richards
Publisher: Harlequin
Mira
Release Date: June
25, 2013
Twenty-two-year-old Cristy
Haviland is about to be released from The North Carolina Correctional Institution
for Women, where she has just served eight months on a contrived shoplifting
charge. Her future looks anything but promising. She is struggling with making
the right decision about the son to whom she gave birth during her
imprisonment. Michael, the son whom she has never held, is being loved and
cared for by a cousin of Cristy’s. She
is afraid to go back to Berle, her hometown, because her son’s father is there.
Cristy is grateful but wary that Samantha Ferguson, the director of a
maternal-health clinic in Ashville, has taken an interest in her and is
offering her a place to stay at Goddess House, a log cabin located between two
small mountain towns, Luck and Trust.
Ironically, luck and
trust are two qualities in short supply in Cristy’s life. There’s little in her
past to foster a belief in either quality even before the prison sentence. The
daughter of a legalistic preacher and his ineffectual wife who set standards their
daughter could never meet and withheld their love and approval when she failed,
Christy was ripe pickings for Jackson Ford, the spoiled and superficial charmer
who won her with his attention and used her for his own twisted purpose.
While Christy is
adjusting to her freedom, discovering who she is, and finding answers to the
questions she has about her new life, one of the directors of Goddess House is
searching for answers about her distant past. Georgia Ferguson, Samantha’s
mother, is an innovative educator currently employed as the principal of an
alternative school. Georgia is the once famous “Sweatshirt Baby,” so tagged by
the media because as a new born she was found wrapped in a University of
Georgia sweatshirt and abandoned in a hospital sink, a preemie who almost didn’t
survive. Now newspaper clippings about her birth and a charm bracelet have
mysteriously appeared on her desk. Their appearance just as she is approaching
her fiftieth birthday leave Georgia wondering about the mother who abandoned her
even as she deals with the challenges of her troubled students.
As different as the
two women are in most ways, a connection develops. Georgia, who has extensive
training in the teaching of reading, recognizes that Cristy is illiterate.
Given the young woman’s obvious intelligence and social skills, Georgia
determines that the problem is a form of dyslexia and offers to teach Cristy to
read. Afraid of just one more failure, Cristy is at first reluctant but
eventually accepts Georgia’s offer. As they work together, their respect for
one another deepens and a friendship develops. When Georgia decides to unlock
the mystery of her past, Cristy is one of the friends with her every step of
her journey.
Emilie Richards packs
this second book in her Goddesses Anonymous series with elements drawn from a
variety of genres and a bundle of social issues. Somewhere Between Luck and Trust is most clearly women’s fiction,
but both the mystery and romance threads are strong. In addition to the mystery
of Georgia’s beginnings, there is the mystery of the setup that sent Cristy to
prison. Both mysteries are solved but not without some twists along the way.
Romance is provided for both women as well. Jim “Sully” Sullivan, a young cop from
Berle who has a strong sense of justice and high courage, becomes Cristy’s
champion and earns his place in her heart. Lucas Ramsey, a mystery writer with
a soft spot for a troubled teen, sneaks past Georgia’s reservations about
romantic relationships with his genuine charm and caring.
The social issues
woven into the story include rehabilitation, adoption, child abandonment,
literacy, education, acceptance of homosexuality, the evolving definition of
family, and I may have missed one or more. The result of so many issues could
easily have been a confusing, tangled mess of threads or a sociological
treatise, but in the deft hands of Richards, it is neither. She is a gifted
storyteller, and she weaves this complicated mix into a compelling, coherent, variegated
whole that captures the reader’s interest, touches her heart, and challenges
her preconceptions. And she does all this while making the North Carolina setting
so real you can feel the sun’s heat and touch the earth of Cristy’s garden.
Readers of One Mountain Away will enjoy learning
more about Georgia and seeing Samantha and other characters from the first book
make appearances and appreciate seeing Charlotte’s legacy come alive, but Somewhere Between Luck and Trust can
also be read as a standalone. If you appreciate novels, regardless of marketing
tags, that ate cogent, compassionate, and courageous, I highly recommend this
one.
I sometimes think we pay too much attention
to putting books into simple categories. While I will always love undiluted
romance, I also find that some of my favorite books defy simple labels. How do
you feel about books our need to separate books by genre or subgenre?
