Tina's Reading Books

4.5 stars.

Yet another gem from Sarah Mayberry. This is exactly the type of contemporary I love. It isn't flashy or dazzly. It doesn't have Navy SEALs jumping out of planes and stalkers behind every door. It is a good relationship drama that hits on a lot of themes: unrequited love, the value of friendship, and betrayal and trust.

The set up of the story is very well done. Amy and Quinn grew up together practically from the crib. They were always the best of friends. Then Lisa came along and the three of them became the three musketeers, teenagers who did everything together. Amy fell in love with Quinn when they were 14 years old but it was Lisa who was the bold one and got his attention. It was Lisa with whom he moved from a platonic relationship into a boyfriend girlfriend relationship throughout high school and college. And it was Lisa that he married, with Amy standing up for both of them as their 'Best Person'. But Amy never fell out of love with him and she subsumed her pain under a mask of happiness. She still loved both her best friends but it was hard for her to be with them so over time she slowly, through careful neglect, removed herself from their life.

But Quinn is back and he and Lisa are divorcing. SO now what?

This is a great premise and it is the type of a plot that I just adore. It is a story that a good writer can wring a lot out of and a reader can sit back and sink into.

As in another book of hers I read [b:The Best Laid Plans|8558798|The Best Laid Plans (Harlequin Superromance)|Sarah Mayberry|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LZg-vvviL._SL75_.jpg|13427142], Mayberry executes this story brilliantly. Amy and Quinn don't just fall into each other. While Amy has always been hyper aware of Quinn, Quinn is allowed to slowly become aware of Amy as someone other than just 'Ames', his best friend. And Lisa, although she is the architect of her marriage's downfall, isn't made into an out and out villain. She is portrayed as someone who really didn't know what they wanted and screwed up seriously.

Mayberry also allows the three of them continue to negotiate the fluid lines of their friendship outside of the romance. As Quinn reflects on his divorce, he mourns the loss of Lisa his friend and much as the loss of Lisa his wife. Amy, as much as she is disappointed in Lisa for hurting Quinn, doesn't choose sides in their marriage problems, knowing that that is a boundary she can't cross. And in a master stroke, the thing that prevents Quinn and Amy from getting together right away even when Quinn finally acknowledges that he is attracted to her is his fear of losing her as a friend as well. This isn't a contrived obstacle, but a very valid consideration he needs to make before he embarks on changing the tenor of their relationship. He's already lost that with Lisa, he was terrified of losing it with Amy.

And I was also glad to see that when Amy reflects on how different their lives would have been had she been the bold one and made the move at the age of 14 instead of Lisa, Quinn doesn't go there. He acknowledges that things may have been different but he was in love with Lisa even though he no longer is. This is the type of nuance and adult storytelling that makes the contemporary novel my favorite subgenre but is,sadly, not found very often.

I knock off half a star because the ending felt rushed. I know this is because of the book length constraints in the Superromance line, but I can't help but lament how much richer the story would have been if it had another 100 - 200 pages.

Highly recommend.