Review: More than a romance, this is a love story
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 21, 2014
Destiny Burnside is an unemployed web designer who spends her days at the library searching for work; Hefin Thomas is a Welsh craftsman who is temporarily employed by the library's restoration project.  He's planning to leave the Ohio town for his home and healing; she has deep roots in the community and must stay there to help others in her family heal.  It's a familiar trope in romance novels, but Mary Ann Rivers' exploration of the real challenges that time and timing present to relationships is explored with depth and nuances of meaning that are seldom found in traditional romances.  This book is a keeper -- one to reread and savor.Driven far more by characters than plot, this novel may be too slow-moving for readers of paranormal romance or romantic suspense, but every page and moment in this story is perfectly suited to the story's larger themes.  Destiny and Hefin need time and space to sort out their choices and the consequences of those choices, and the novel gives them that, asking readers also to experience the drawn-out decision making that is required by mature adults who know that the choices they make will change their lives forever and affect those they love.Undeniably a toe-curling romance, this book is also a love story that is greater than the characters' relationship.  "Live" examines our love for places and the ways in which our home towns shape us and give our lives meaning; it's a loving homage to the importance of work that allows us to create things that last, and it's a tender witness to finding ways of loving ourselves as we pour our lives into loving others.  Beautifully written, this is a novel to linger over, and Rivers is a writer to watch.