Review: Potential to be a great deal more
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 4, 2013
The plot for this novel - a child, kidnapped as a two-month old baby, turns up after eight years and in the meantime the parents have divorced - is different and refreshing. At the beginning, I was highly intrigued and ready for a good, trauma-filled read with a little romance on the side.Unfortunately, what I got was the other way around.I have always enjoyed Ms Bond's books, but this time I do not believe the humour and "light romance" worked. It appeared as though the author couldn't decide whether the plot would be serious or romantic. It fell b etween the two - three-quarters romance and a quarter serious business - and a terrific opportunity was lost to write a humdinger of a story.The characters start by being interesting, but all too soon fall into the traditional romantic genre. Characterisation was sacrificed - more depth would have been good - and romance over-powered the storyline. Unfortunately, the kidnapping and its aftermath are side-tracked by the parents lusting after each other at every opportunity, to the point where the child's part in it gets swamped. There is no real closure about what happened and why Chad's "mother" took his in the first place.Chad, acts and speaks like a teenager rather than the little kid he is supposed to be  - the mother makes a nonsensical decision - any adult surely would have had more common sense.The ending was rushed and entirely predictable - suddenly it all fell into place and bingo, no more angst!It's not that the book was bad - a Stephanie Bond novel couldn't be bad - rather that the author didn't take her excellent plot seriously which was very disappointing.