Review: Fighting for a last chance for love before its memory fades completely away
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 8, 2014
Oh what a lovely, wholesome joy it is to take in the sunshine alongside music professor Gus LeGarde! All worries fall away, just being with him as he enjoys the simple little pleasures life has to offer. Food: "For almost a year, I'd been devouring Milka chocolate bars... We'd bought enough for an army, and I considered it my personal challenge to devour one ever night." Dogs: "Max thumped his tail on the grass and nuzzled me with a wet nose... I stroked his ears and rested back on my elbows on the warm grass." Family: "There was something about those sweet little faces, their soft hands and kisses, their incessant noise and joyful shrieks that made me feel whole and alive."Yet, at a moments notice Gus snaps out of his relaxed mood, and the mood alternates from soothing to suspenseful when an emergency presents itself. Here is is, leaping to rescue Lily, a Korean woman trapped in a burning house: "The black cloud rolled with a vengeance now, completely clouding my vision. I struggled to breathe and reached for the stairway rail, trying to balance." Or on another call to action, "With vengeance and absolutely no remorse, I swung again, this time at the back of his head. I put all I had into the blow." These changes in mood drive us through the twists and turns of the story, trusting all the while that all will end on an upswing note, and we will find ourselves with Gus at a cozy place in the end.Note the respect and warm-hearted affection with which Gus describes Kip Sterling, the elderly Alzheimer's stricken man known as `the music man', whom he meets in a local nursing home : "Deep character lines etched his face, offset by dark blue eyes that drifted to days forgotten." Looking at Kip, Gus is touched by the mystery of a mind disappearing. Could Bella, Kip's first and only love, still be alive? Would he, Gus, find her and bring her before Kip in time? Will the old man have the opportunity to say to her, "My Bella. Oh my God. My Bella,"  before the memory of love fades completely away?Five stars.