Clare Ballinger is a divorce therapist who helps people get over their sense of loss and go on with their lives. Yet, Clare herself has lost her husband five years ago, and as cool and collected as she seems, she has difficulty relating to other men except as friends. Clare treats her patients usually in groups and in retreats. As she gets ready to open a permanent place on a beautiful property on the Alabama coast, her best friend Dory takes back her estranged husband called Son, someone Clare dislikes, to form a happy union, while Clare’s daughter Haley’s marriage breaks up. Clare has two men in her life whom she considers friends, but both men are interested in her. Rye Ballinger, the cousin of her husband who looks like him, and Lex, a northerner who owns and operates the marina. Lex’s ex-wife Elinor is a high-end boutique shop owner. When Lex shows interest in Clare, Elinor tries to get Lex back, although she is the one who has left him. As Lex vacillates, Clare falls in love with him, even if she denies her feelings to herself.

The setting is Fairhope, Alabama, a southern coast town rich with warmth and gossip. The strength of the novel is in its diverse characters who are so human that a reader can visualize them one by one in front of his eyes. Even the secondary characters leave an indelible image like Clare’s colorful mother-in-law Zoe who acts as the sage in the story. Most of the characters surrounding Clare have experienced the hurt of love lost.

the skillfully drawn characters and the setting.

read whatever else Cassandra King has written.

uplifted because the story moves and touches the reader without complete villains or resorting to melodrama or cheap tricks, and the characters find positive solutions to their dilemmas.

Cassandra King is a former English and creative writing teacher from Alabama who has essays and stories in various publications. At this date, she has four novels in print: Same Sweet Girls, The Sunday Wife, Making Waves, and Queen of Broken Hearts. She lives in South Carolina with her husband Pat Conroy.

the characters are delightful and diverse, and their backstories and the dramatic scenes are masterfully written. The language flows beautifully, also.

This story feels more like a human story of self-discovery than a romance novel, although some book stores stack it inside the romance section. The romance in this novel is skillfully woven through the plotline, making the reader want to read on, and the story lacks the titillating sex scenes that have little to do with the plot, which is a characteristic of the romance genre.

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Created Jul 09, 2008 at 6:21pm • Submit your own review...