Jane's Melody
When 40-year-old Jane loses her daughter, Melody, to an overdose due to the girl’s longtime drug addiction, Jane is emotionally cast adrift and eagerly latches onto anything that may help her better understand her daughter’s last days, including 25-year-old Caleb, a homeless street musician. Believing at first that Caleb was her daughter’s boyfriend, Jane improbably takes the young stranger under her wing and invites him into her home as a paid laborer for a garden project. As they unravel truths about one another, they also allow love to rise, and it entangles them in a sexy, heartfelt romance. Jane’s struggle with her family’s history of addiction and abuse finds some relief in the comforting arms and mature mind of Caleb, who has his own demons to fight but is mostly simply there as the ultimate romance hero for Jane. An engaging read filled with bona fide emotions, despite also containing a jumble of plot clichés, consistent overtelling, and a reliance on hackneyed sentences. --Julie Trevelyan--This text refers to an alternatePaperbackedition.