Tina's Reading Books

I got sucked into this book and finished it in almost one sitting. It was exactly the sort of book that I needed to quickly engage me when I was picking up an putting down almost everything.

The premise is fairly simple but the execution is excellent. Cathy is a divorced mother of a very sick child. Her daughter has leukemia and isn't responding to any of the treatments. She's been battling the disease for three years. Cathy's ex is a serious dead-beat who wants nothing to do with her of their child. As a result Cathy's former, fairly comfortable lifestyle is a thing of the past. Her health insurance is maxed and out and will not longer honor the claims for the still stiff medical bills. So she's sold her house, her car, emptied her savings, her 401(k) and other retirement benefits. At this point Cathy is living pay-check to pay-check, hanging on by her very fingertips, terrified that one tragedy, one unanticipated expense will completely wipe her out.

This is where I think the book excels. The author paints an incredibly well drawn portrait of a woman who is at a place where she would seriously contemplate answering an ad where a man wants to pay her $3,000 a month for unencumbered sex. It doesn't have that whiff of a convenient erotica plot point. Cathy is truly tightly wound and has nothing left, not even pride. There is a great scene in the beginning where she goes to visit her daughter in the hospital and takes her a small package of skittles. A new nurse, one who isn't familiar with Cathy or her daughter, admonishes Cathy on the sweets.

Cathy felt something inside of her snap. The air whooshed strongly out of her lungs. "Do you understand? Do you really?! Do you understand that my little girl has been ill for nearly two years? That she spends more time here with needles stuck in her arms than she does with me?"

Her whole body was shaking. She took a step forward and leaned in close, getting in the woman's astonished face. "There are no more play dates! There is no going-back-to-school shopping for a pink lunch box or colored pencils and crayons!" Fury poured out of her. "She started reading when she was five years old. She's smart and pretty and funny. She should be in school or playing with her friends. But she is here instead. And you're telling me that she can't have a few pieces of her favorite candy! You stupid, stupid, insensitive bitch!"

Cathy enters into her business arrangement with the rich enigmatic Michael with a lot of trepidation and shame. But she comes to enjoy the time with him even under the shame.

I found Michael to be cold and engimatic at first but as the book progresses he warms up incredibly. He begins to get intensely curious about the woman he only knows as 'Winter' and breaks his own rules of non-emotional entanglement when he inadvertently finds out more about her than she may be aware. He also begins to examine his own closed off emotions and why he feels to need to have such an arrangement himself.

I loved the progression of the relationship. Michael for all his aloofness was a pretty decent guy. There were moments where Cathy would forget the true nature of their relationship only to be slapped in the face with it again. The conflict of the book obviously is the nature of their involvement. But there is another big doozy of a secret that Michael is keeping from Cathy that leads the relationship to a crisis point. I liked the build to the climax and how all is revealed both to the main characters and the great cast of supporting characters.

This was a richly emotional novel that was nicely written and completely absorbing.