Review: Heroine Falters
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2013
FAITH HOPE AND LOVE starts out well. Rachel Carstairs, a relief worker, has traveled from her third-world post to California to fight for custody of her dead cousin's son. Her opponent, Luke Summers, is the child's paternal uncle. The initial court room scene has a lot of tension and sizzle as both Rachel and Luke size one another up. Neither is quite the monster that the other expected. Luke, being wealthy and settled, wins the case hands down. But his curiosity about Rachel and her motives leads him to seek her out at her motel. He finds her ill with exhaustion and takes her to stay at his luxurious ranch.Here's where the story should have really taken off. Luke is a standard alpha male. He's attracted to Rachel and does everything he can to engineer her extended stay and convince her to take an interest in him.But Rachel just won't engage. She's secretive and evasive and off-putting. Kakade explains this as her character's way of protecting herself from the pain of leaving the baby and Luke to return to her relief work. Rachel's father, an unloving man, saddled her with serious self-esteem issues. Despite Luke virtually throwing his heart and his fortune at her feet, she can't believe anyone could really want her. Problem is that instead of arousing our sympathy, this emotional complication seems thin and artificial. I guess what it comes down to is that there IS NO complication. No real reason for this couple not to come together. Which means that when they do, it's rushed and then completely deflated by an epilogue that covers several decades of Rachel and Luke's family life.Kakade had the makings of a nice romance here, but she just didn't carry it off.