Review: You don't know what you've got till it's gone
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 11 4, 2013
ALMOST MINE by Lea Darragh is a debut novel by an Australian author.  The book looks at love (I know not a surprise when you are reading a romance novel) from the point of view as to ask is it enough for one half of a relationship to love strongly enough to compensate for two?  In the first half of the book, which was quite slow to get going for me, Cate is quite an unlovable person; she is shallow, brattish and self-absorbed.  How Nick could stay loyal to her was beyond me – he must be a saint!  But no, about half way through the book things turn around.  Nick the saint become Nick the I really want to smack you silly while Cate finally matures and realises that she loves Nick dearly and wants only him.  When she promised to love in him for better and for the worst she didn’t love Nick but he said he had enough love for the two of them so she went ahead with the ceremony.  When they went through a personal crisis he pushes her away and moved out to live in his office.  A real turn around to the first half.  I now found myself loving Cate as a character and really disliking the precious princess of a Nick.I like it when there is real growth found in a character and there certainly was with Cate.  The book opens with Cate about to make a final stand to bring back her estranged husband, then the story goes back to their childhood how they meet, become best friends how she goes off the rails and becomes quite a bad girl.  Nick is always there for her, and then they marry.  I felt that this went on a bit too long – I understand that the background needs to be filled in and I am certainly the first to complain when background information isn’t given. However in this instance there may have been a tad too much.  Still once they got married the story settled down and I settled down to enjoy the story.I love how the setting was on a winery – and one with a restaurant even – love wineries and love even more wineries were you can sit and taste their wines with a meal.  ALMOST MINE is Lea Darragh’s first novel, and I am glad to say that she is already working on her next which I will certainly keep an eye out for.Rating: C – Above average.  Was very readable and I really liked it but was easily able to put it down and walk away for a while