The Road Leads Back*
Breathtakingly Beautifully Written Tale of Coming Home To Love
Forty-something hippie chick artist, Kara, is blown away when she is touched on the shoulder by a man she hasn’t seen since their one-night stand nearly thirty years ago. They had each had a secret crush on each other during high school, and after a graduation party, acted on it. This resulted in a pregnancy that, through no fault of either of them, Harry never knew about. Their son, Phil, is a father of a young daughter with Down syndrome.
How will this play out for this long-fractured family unit? Can Kara give up her resentment and anger and allow Harry to get to know his son and granddaughter? How will Harry react to finding out that he is not only the father of a grown son but also a grandfather to a special needs girl? Will Phil accept Harry and allow him to know his daughter?
What an emotional ride! This author hit all the right buttons showing the varied and varying emotional responses of the primary characters. The pain expressed by them is raw and real. She deftly reveals the past slowly so the various parties can understand the impact of decisions made by others that affected this family unit. The author writes with an emotional honesty that is breathtaking to read. I tend to move quickly through books, as I am an avid and fast reader, but this book had me slowing down and immersing myself in the thoughts and feelings of these good people who had been kept apart. It is a real pageturner, though not in the action-filled sense we usually think of one.
On the book review site where I downloaded this book from, it was listed as both Contemporary Romance and Women’s Literature. I agree with these labels; categories at both review sites and online retailers are often inaccurate. If you read romance, you’ve read the second chance at romance and the secret child tropes before a gazillion times. But in this book, these themes are explored with emotional and psychological depth, which is more common in women’s literature. Kudos to the author for creating such three-dimensional characters and an in-depth backstory. For instance, it was beautiful to read Harry’s reaction as he was thumbing through Phil’s baby pictures.
