The Kind of Love That Saves You
A series of letters that form a scrapbook for an as-yet unborn child provides the framing device for Yurk's sugary debut novel, which attempts to trace Sarah Strickland's difficult journey toward a hopeful future after her perfect marriage crumbles in a devastating loss. Madly in love with Gavin, her husband of five years, 28-year-old Sarah yearns to have a child. Gavin is unsure about parenthood at first, but eventually agrees to Sarah's blandishments. Both he and Sarah are ecstatic when she conceives, but their happiness is short-lived: on New Year's Eve, Gavin dies when a truck collides with their car. Between coping with her snobbish mother and negotiating her complex relationship with "best friend since kindergarten" Calista, Sarah proceeds mawkishly through the stages of loss: anger, pain, denial, isolation, guilt and, finally, hope and acceptance. Predictably, she learns that help can come from surprising quarters and that "the love you have for your own child is a fiercer kind of love. I think it might be the kind of love that saves you." Despite the contemporary Seattle setting, the characters frequently seem old-fashioned, and they sometimes speak in cliches. Sarah's direct address to her fetus is disconcerting at best ("I know that you are barely a bundle of cells, a grain of rice, but within you floats such magic... our little girl. I can't stop imagining you as sugar and spice"). Readers who enjoy novel-length Hallmark cards will be as happy as smile buttons sitting on velvet hearts. Readers Companion available on-line. (May)Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.