Review: Delightful romance
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 05 6, 2013
Another delightful story by Alicia Rasley. I can see I'll be reading a lot of her books. After having finished her novella "The Wilder Heart," I needed more of her beautiful story-telling and heart-wrenching romance.  This was very satisfying, and a pleasure to read. I was torn between staying up all night to read versus stretching it out to savor the experience a bit longer.I am a sucker for a romance between friends. Kristen is a prim and proper widow, always living by her virtuosity, never breaking the rules. Brendan is a wild and crazy guy, charming beyond words, living a hedonistic life, but with a heart of gold, generous to a fault, and always loyal to his friends. Kristen resists his tempting suggestion for an affair, but Brendan senses something worthy and soothing in her constancy and her honesty, so they agree to be friends, jokingly resolving to "convert" the other.The story is "long," not in word count, but in duration. It takes place over almost 5 or 6 years, so at times the author needs to "tell" rather than "show," but Rasley does this very nicely, giving us only the details we need, although quite descriptive. In an unusual twist to the typical romance formula, Kristen tolerates Brendan's many fleeting and temporary romances over the years, which added to the development of the type of solid and unconditional friendship that grew between them.I sighed, I chuckled, I got a little choked up, and I cheered. I just loved this book. Obviously I clicked with Rasley's style of writing, as she just carried me away with her prose and her delightful characters. They were funny and flawed, sweet and loving.My only disappointment was with some of the editing- I noticed a reviewer mentioned this over a year ago, and there was acknowledgement of this from the author and an effort to correct. However, some of these typos still exist, and they could be annoying - "eat" for "ear" (an unusual substitution when describing a steamy kiss!) and "law" for "jaw' (he hit his law?). But overall, it didn't irritate me enough to stop reading. More than anything, I thought this fine book deserved better editing.