Review: Compelling novel of self-discovery
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 10, 2013
If the life envisioned for your future happiness could perhaps turn toward a new direction, would you follow your heart or just hope for the best? This is one of the questions that challenge the heroine in FINDING ISADORA, and she has to look deep within herself time and again before making numerous complicated decisions. Susan Fox takes Isadora Wheeler down a road filled with many obstacles that make her stop and think about not only her own life but those of people for whom she genuinely cares.Although Isadora Wheeler enjoys the rewarding situations she experiences as a veterinarian, her personal life is not yet completely fulfilling. She does have a fiancé, so hopefully the days ahead will bring her the joy she has been wanting for years. While she has always known much love from her parents, she wants her own future to be unlike their eccentric lifestyle. Isadora believes the conservative man she is planning to marry will make her life more stable, something it has never been.When she feels an almost overwhelming attraction to a stranger, she never intends to act on the magnetic pull. But when Gabriel DeLuca becomes the lawyer for her father, they keep running into each other. Since there are other factors that make a relationship between the two particularly awkward, Isadora knows ignoring the awareness is best as she has her life all planned out. Yet, all she can think about is Gabriel and the passion they could possibly share with each other.Books by Susan Fox are always detailed and extremely emotional, and her first women's fiction story convincingly portrays an agonizing period in the life of Isadora Wheeler. She seems like an ordinary woman with normal dreams, but an encounter with a man ends up altering quite a few of her ideas that she assumed nothing would ever change. The whole book is told from her perspective, and revealing facts helped me to know exactly why Isadora had certain thoughts at any given time. Being such a kindhearted individual, what she would ultimately choose to do weighed heavily on her and this made her more likable as she is never callous. How Isadora interacted with the people and animals around her told me much about her personality, and being privy to her feelings also gave insight into her nature. While some of the resolutions she came to are painful for not only her but also others, this does happen in real life and thus caused the story to be totally plausible.There are so many wonderful secondary characters in FINDING ISADORA, and each one has such distinctive personalities. Enough background is given about several of the more prominent individuals to let me know the reasons for their responses on different occasions. Her parents are especially delightful, and visualizing someone with their viewpoints made me smile. Gabriel is a complex man, one with whom I came to truly respect because of his honesty and openness with Isadora. FINDING ISADORA believably depicts realistic motives backed by sincere emotions.