Review: Lots of potential in this realistic tale.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 24, 2013
I struggled through the first few pages of this one. The author commits that terrible sin of telling, not showing. I was told everything from how the heroine, Cara, chose to wear a particular piece of clothing, its exact colour and style, to how she walked down the stairs, took her key from her bag, put it in the lock and walked to the car, turned the key, drove out the drive... Frankly, the diatribe of meaningless detail was annoying. I started to wonder when anything interesting was going to happen.When she finally meets the hero, Riley, it is after a number of false starts and flirtations with various men. Cara is no angel. And that was when the appeal of this story finally hit me. Cara is real. Very, very real. She's that struggling single mum who lives a very boring, edge-of-poverty existence in the 'burbs of average life. She's not about to be whisked away by some gorgeous billionaire, because Cara will probably never cross paths with one in her entire existence.Her life is about her admin job in a prison, making ends meet for her young son, avoiding her ex as much as possible and drowning the banality of her existence in weekends of drinking and occasional debauchery alongside her questionable BFF. I didn't admire her morals and I don't think there was much emphasis on her mothering, but I couldn't deny that I didn't feel for her or that I would never want to be her.Then along comes Riley. He doesn't seem too different to the other losers she's hooked up with to date, until he somehow insinuates himself into her life and makes her reality that much more interesting and bearable. I really liked Riley. I liked that he was quiet and strong and true. I liked that he didn't try to change everything about Cara, but that he opened her life up slowly by getting her to experience more, even if that 'more' was as simple as attending a concert. It also helped that Riley is a hot, young soldier, though who he really is and what he thinks was never well portrayed. I'd liked a bit more of his background to have been written into the story.When the twist came toward the end of the book, I really wasn't ready for it; I felt completely betrayed. In fact, I was furious at Riley on Cara's behalf. But then the writer kept the twist turning until the HEA came slowly wending out of the laborious detail of Cara's everyday life. And it was beautiful and worth waiting for.I won't say this story is one of the best examples of writing on the market - I still think the author could benefit from showing not telling - but I will say her style was stealthily effective. One moment you're reading a rather laborious account of some hoe's life and the next thing you are invested in a romance between two very real, if sketchily drawn, characters. It's beautiful, sad and eventually rewarding in a bare-as-bones kind of way.Enjoyed it and would keep my eyes open for future works by this author.