Book received from both Netgalley and Bold Strokes Books for an honest review
This book has two main point of view/main characters. Shaw Daily, and Kate Elkins.
Shaw Daily is five feet ten inches, 38, has short hair, and is constantly confused by others on whether they are looking at a man or woman. She is also an executive vice president over international marketing and sales. The book opens with Shaw on a business trip to Japan but, during a meeting, she has something like a panic attack and has to exit before the meeting was over. Before she was supposed to return, she finds herself back in the San Francisco airport having reached a specific decision – she’s going to take some time off and return to the place she considers home – Cooper’s Creek North Carolina (even though she and her mother seemed to be constantly on the move and rarely actually lived in Cooper’s Creek – it’s actually those occasions when Shaw was dumped with the grandparents in Cooper’s Creek that Shaw is remembering as home, not her time with her mother). On the family front: Shaw is alone now, she never knew her father, her mother is dead, and her grandparents passed long ago. On the friend front . . . I’m not sure it’d be fair to say she has none, because we never actually see Shaw in her ‘normal’ life, just ‘off finding herself’, though it is possible her boss is her friend. She’s friendly enough, though, since there’s mention of her being friends with Miriam, Kate’s sister, back when the two were growing up (though, as a show of this being her past not present – Shaw didn’t even know Miriam’s children status); and Shaw . . . continues whatever odd relationship/friendship she has with Jimmy (he looks over her place (well her grandparent’s old place that Shaw now owns), but you can tell the closeness by how Jimmy didn’t even know Shaw would be around the first time they bumped into each other in Cooper’s Creek.
Kate Elkins is 34 and an elementary school teacher. The book opens with her disengaging from her current life – living in her apartment, being a teacher, to take a year off to take care of her mother who had recently suffered a stroke and is suffering from a certain frailty and memory loss, a certain dementia. Kate, unlike Shaw, has several living relatives – in addition to her mother, there’s her sister Miriam and her husband Greg, and their children. On the friend font, a large cast of people were seen eating with Kate after the school year ended, and it was implied that they were all friends with Kate. Most aren’t actually seen much in this story, though. Her ex-girlfriend Karen, though, was spotted along the way.
One of the problems of reading a lot of books by the same author was experienced, somewhat briefly, in this book here. And that’s the part wherein one of the main characters physical aspects, as described in the book, seemed to match up with another prominent and important character in the author’s inventory of characters. There was enough there from the beginning for me to know that this wasn’t a repeat of a character, or that character under a different name. Still, the knowledge of that other character was impacting my interpretation of this current character. All because of physical description – the short hair, men’s cut clothing, being confused for a man, etc. Mind, it wasn’t just one story I’d previously encountered this character, but 12 previous works – and a still on-going series. Of course I’m thinking of Jane of Jane’s world – though, as quickly experienced, while there are some similarities in appearance and personality, Jane and Shaw are by no means the same or, really, similar characters (beyond just the fact that Jane likes dressing causally, seems shorter than Shaw, and less confident, etc. than Shaw).
The story: Kate has had a crush on Shaw for years – ever since both were kids, though she’d never before been able to act on it – for reasons, including the age difference and the part where Shaw had been more of Miriam’s friend than Kate’s. Now, though, both are in their thirties and literally live right next door to each other – though there’s a hill and stream between them. Still, it’s hard to act on these old feelings when Kate doesn’t believe she is in any position to get into any kind of relationship - as she has to take care of her ill mother; plus, Kate is unsure of how long Shaw will even be around. Despite desires one way or another, or maybe I should say because of desires, a relationship begins between Shaw and Kate, though Shaw upfront noted that she doesn’t know how long she’ll be around, and isn’t the best at relationships (I’m wording this a lot worse than Shaw did, mmphs, the point is that Kate and Shaw enter a relationship with both having their eyes wide open).
Family is a big part of this book – both Kate’s, and, surprisingly, Shaw’s. For, recall, Kate’s mother has certain ‘issues’ with memory – and people have a tendency to take a glance at Shaw and see a man. Well, fairly early on, Kate’s mother took her first look, I believe, at Shaw and called her ‘Charlie’. Confused and intrigued, Shaw spends part of the book investigating this mystery – is Charlie related to her? Are they actually that similar in appearance?
Good solid interesting story. I might be getting emotional as I get up there in age, as this is another of those books that forced me to ‘feel’ things.
On the sex front: occurred, is graphically detailed.
On the characters front: I liked both main characters, and, somewhat abnormal for me, liked the side-family characters. I will note, though, that the two main characters are more developed, more solid, than the others.
I feel like making some comment like ‘unexpectedly, this author sits fifth on my list of authors ranked by total number of works read’, but bah, I do not really have anywhere to go with a comment like that one.
Rating: 4.65
January 13 2018
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