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Rating: 
Summary: really good
Review: I wish I could give fractional stars...This is a four and a half, if not a four and three quarters. This book is among the best in the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: What a surprise!
Review: Raina Lynn's debut novel was just released in the UK this month although I see from the copyright date that it must have come out in the USA in 1997/8. I bought it, purely on a whim, yesterday during my lunch hour without even opening the book or doing more than glancing at the blurb on the back. Not my usual style as I like to read about books and look carefully at reader reviews most of the time. Wow! Wow! Wow!I could not put this book down and feel quite overwhelmed by it. This is category romance (so often unfairly derided) at its very best. Briefly, the story concerns the relationships in a family where personalities are strong, tempers sometimes short, emotions deep but love is steadfast. The daily hurdles of life are truly brought out for this family to overcome. Maggie was a product of the foster care system who met the boy next door, Garrett Hughes, when she was 16. They fell deeply in love, married when Garrett graduated from the police academy and had a much loved son, Rick. However, Garrett was a fully committed cop who transferred to the DEA and got involved in an undercover case which dragged on for years. It signaled the end of their marriage. Maggie could not take being married to a cop who had previously suffered several injuries on the job and, like many who have been hurt in their formative years, she pushed him away before he could "leave" her, eg by being killed on the job. Rick, like all kids in this sort of situation, was caught in the middle and deeply hurt and confused. After the undercover job ended, Garrett decided to get his family back and so flew out to San Francisco to begin an attempt at reconciliation. However, fate intervened and the first of the hurdles this family faces arises in the form of a tragic Lockerbie type incident. Badly hurt, Garrett suffers from multiple injuries and winds up in a coma, nearly dead following three resucitations after coronaries on the table and in ICU. Maggie, a physiotherapist and health professional herself, takes up a bedside vigil. Whilst in the coma, Garrett nonetheless is able to hear what is happening around him and even seems to read Maggie's thoughts as she pours out her love, grief and frustrations to the ex-husband she thinks is unconscious. The opening few chapters in this book are really excellent in portraying the surroundings of an ICU and in describing Garrett's near death experiences in a fully believeable way. Unfortunately, the first hurdle is now in place - Garrett has fractured his spine and will be a paraplegic. A long period of rehab and readjustment is started. Ms Lynn describes very accurately not just the physical rehab required but also gives us an intimate and honest portrayal of the grief, shock, mourning, disbelief, anger, feelings of inadequacy and the highs and lows of a man and his family coming to terms with a life turned completely upside down. Excellent, simply excellent how she lets us into the private thoughts and the angry interaction between these two people who have so much on their plates yet still madly and passionately love and want each other both physically. Like all romantic stories, they come together, push each other apart and then come together again. He is convinced he will be a burden to Maggie; she is terrified of letting him back into her life lest she be hurt again by losing him - particularly when after the first 6 months or so he begins to want to return to police work, albeit as a trainer. Eventually, this family accept each other for what each of them truly is and not what they want each other to be. Maggie, in particular, realises that she must love the whole man, not the man she things she has always wanted. Rick learns that his parents are not perfect (they even have sex!) and learns to love his father despite typical adolescent hormonal rages and feelings of rejection which came about because of the nature of Garrett's job. Garrett learns that he has some very deep rooted strengths on which he can draw to put his life back together with the love of his family. One particularly poignant issue dealt with in this book is that of impotence. Yes, it sometimes arises in stories where the hero is disabled as it does here, but I have never read a more realistic portrayal of the impact it can have on a man, particularly one who suffers, as Maggie says, from "testosterone poisoning". How this couple deal with it and over come it is wonderful to read. At the conclusion of the novel they are trying for a second family. Although life will still put up hurdles for them, you feel that all three members of this family have come through their experiences wiser, more courageous, more tolerant, more unified and loving than they would have been without the experiences Ms Lynn writes of. I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it was well written and the author writes about marriage and disability with true insight. Well done!
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