The Other Side of Us

The Other Side of Us

By Sarah Mayberry

Publisher: Harlequin (Superromance)

Release Date: January 2, 2013

Musician and sound engineer Oliver Barrett considers himself a happily married man until one day he swaps cars with his wife and discovers that she is involved in an affair with an old boyfriend and has been since six months after she and Oliver married six years ago. Reeling from the mix of anger, grief, and humiliation resulting from the breakup of his marriage, Oliver distances himself physically from his problems by leaving Sydney for the beach house a thousand miles away that he and his older brother have inherited from an aunt. He hopes the time he plans to spend getting the house ready to sell will give him some much needed emotional distance from the events that changed his life.

Mackenzie Williams is a television producer recovering from an automobile accident that almost claimed her life. Mackenzie has retreated to her beach house, next door to the house of Oliver’s aunt, where she is going through the long and painful rehabilitation required by the multiple injuries she sustained. She pushes her body to its limits and sometimes beyond, determined to reach the point where she is able to return to the job that has become her life.

Oliver, a considerate neighbor, introduces himself to Mackenzie so that she won’t be concerned to see evidence of life in the house that has been vacant for a year, but her surliness convinces him that he should avoid her. Unfortunately for his intentions, Oliver’s schnauzer, Strudel, and Mackenzie’s dachshund, Mr. Smith, find each other far more congenial than do their owners. In fact, Mr. Smith turns into a regular escape artist in his pursuit of Strudel, a fact that exacerbates the conflict between the dog owners. It’s not until Oliver helps Mackenzie when her house is inundated by storm runoff that the two establish friendly relations. As they spend time together, the attraction between them grows, but they both have to deal with baggage from their pasts before they are ready to commit to a new life they can share.

Oliver is wonderful—smart and sexy and generous with a sense of humor and a love of music. Add to these qualities his love for his dog, his songwriting skills, and his chestnut red hair, and you have a near perfect hero in my opinion. I adored him from the start. Mackenzie was more difficult to like. While I found her tenacity and courage admirable, I was put off initially by her self-absorption and coldness. But I changed my mind about her gradually, and the ending where she took action rather than meekly accepting Oliver’s fear-motivated choices pushed her high on my list of favorite heroines.

Characters are always the most important element in my response to fiction, and Mayberry is among the very best at creating characters who become real and significant. The choices Oliver makes when he discovers his wife’s infidelity, for example, are choices I can see men I know making in his circumstances. I love that both the hero and heroine are adults who have lived long enough to have experienced life and that their experience includes but is not limited to sex. I love that this is a book about two people developing a relationship not about strangers who fall in lust at first sight and never seem to have anything in common other than desire. And the fact that Oliver and Mackenzie achieve their HEA only after effort on both their parts and that their HEA includes professional and personal success made me want to cheer loudly. Readers who define action in terms of explosions, literal and figurative, may not understand the appeal of Mayberry’s books, but if you read contemporary romance because you are interested in relationships with all their complexities, challenges, and rewards, I highly recommend this book. That’s my usual response to a Mayberry book.

"Autobuy" is a word we hear frequently in the romance reading community. Do you have auto-buy authors whose name on the cover is enough to persuade you that you must read the book?



CONTEST:


Harlequin Superromance is my favorite category imprint. A number of my autobuy authors write for this line. I was delighted when I learned that beginning in January 2012, the stories in this line would be longer and more complex. And the books I have read have more than fulfilled my expectations. I’ll follow today’s review with other January HSR reviews Wednesday Thursday.  On Thursday Friday, one randomly selected commenter will win her/his choice of the HSRs I review. (With apologies to international readers, this contest is open to U. S. residents only.)

A Hometown Boy

A Hometown Boy

By Janice Kay Johnson

Publisher: Harlequin (Superromance)

Release Date: January 2, 2013

David Owens and Acadia Henderson grew up as neighbors in the small town of Tucannon, Washington. Acadia had a crush on the older David, but at thirteen when her parents divorced, she moved to California with her mother. Except for one brief, magical summer, David became part of her past. Now they are both returning to Tucannon, but the Tucannon that awaits them is not the idyllic town they knew as children. It has become a scene from a nightmare, a horror so great that even David, a prosecutor, and Acadia, a trauma nurse, aren’t really prepared for it.

Robbie Owen, David’s older brother and a paranoid schizophrenic, has killed six of his neighbors and himself with guns stolen from his dead father’s gun safe. One of the victims is Charlie Henderson, Acadia’s mild-mannered, book-loving father. It is in these circumstances that Davis and Acadia meet again and are drawn together by their grief and regret, by their memories, and by an attraction that flourishes amid the tragedy and heartbreak that are the grim legacies of a few moments of terror.

David and Acadia are decent, intelligent, complex people. In addition to feelings of horror and loss, they are both struggling with guilt. David, the good son who never gave his parents a moment’s trouble, must face the resentment he felt over his parents’ immersion in his brother’s illness and the haunting questions of whether different choices could have prevented the horrific ending of his brother’s life. Acadia never fully forgave her father for not fighting to keep his family, and she is inundated with remorse over all the time she failed to spend with him and all the words she never said to him. It is easy to hope that somehow they can nurture the feelings they have for each other and find a way to build a life together despite the odds they face.

But this book is more than a romance. It is also the story of a town and its people caught in the aftermath of an unimaginable act. It is the story of the dead—a humorless grouch, an ex-marine who was heroic to the end, a kindly pharmacist who always had a smile for everyone and candy for kids—and the living—a mother broken by grief for the son she loved despite what his disease made of him and by the guilt that somehow she could have stopped him, the police officer who combines dedication and intelligence with compassion, the young mechanic coping with survivor’s guilt and the conviction that a hero died to save a coward like him. It is the story of how tragedy exposes the baseness and self-centeredness of some and the grace and great-heartedness of others. It is the story of the cost mental illness exacts from those who suffer with it, from their families, and ultimately from the social system so poorly prepared to deal with mental illness.

There will be readers who fault this book for being dark and anything but romantic. Others will find the book moving, haunting, and ultimately an affirmation of the transformative power of love in many forms. Janice Kay Johnson has long been one of my autobuy authors, and I was aware of her ability to weave unforgettable stories rich in their complexity and completeness. But even for so gifted a writer, A Hometown Boy is an extraordinary book, one that, in the wake of recent events, carries layers never expected by the author or the publisher. It is a reminder of all the stories that remain untold by the headlines in newspapers and magazines. This is one I can’t forget, and it should silence forever those who label category romance as inevitably lightweight and insubstantial.

I was unprepared for the story A Hometown Boy gave me. What was the last book that surprised you by being a larger, more important story than you expected?



CONTEST:

Harlequin Superromance is my favorite category imprint. A number of my auto-buy authors write for this line. I was delighted when I learned that beginning in January 2013, the stories in this line would be longer and more complex. And the books I have read have more than fulfilled my expectations. I’ll follow today’s review with other January HSR reviews tomorrow and Wednesday Thursday.  On Thursday Friday, one randomly selected commenter will win her/his choice of the HSRs I review. (With apologies to international readers, this contest is open to U. S. residents only.)