Customer Reviews

Love Becomes Her (Kimani Romance)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

LOVE BECOMES HER by Donna Hill
September 15, 2006

Rating ****

LOVE BECOMES HER is the first in a series of books by Donna Hill centering on four African American women who have been best friends for many years, each of them different in personality and tastes. Barbara is heading towards 50, and has just gotten involved with a 30-year-old man! She's confused as to what she should be doing, is embarrassed at first to tell her friends. Michael is a well-to-do good-looking basketball star, and she can't figure out why he is interested in her, a pre-menopausal woman.

Ann Marie is Jamaican-born, but now lives in New York and is a very successful real estate agent. Her latest drama is that her adult daughter, Raquel, has moved in with her, and Ann Marie is not sure why. She had thought her daughter was happily married and therefore there was no reason why Raquel would be moving back in with her mother. Their relationship is very tense, and Ann Marie knows that she's never been the mother that Raquel had needed all her life. There doesn't seem to be one maternal bone in Ann Marie's body.

Elizabeth just found out the most shocking news of her life. Her husband of 30 years is leaving her for a younger woman. She is beside herself, and is afraid how her twin adult daughters will react, whether they will blame her or console her. She's also been a housewife all these years, and he's told her he's taking the house so he can live there with his new girlfriend! What is she going to do?

Stephanie has been successful in her career and has moved steadily up the corporate ladder. And while she knows that she could have made it on her own, she knows that part of her success is owed to her lover, Conrad, who is very married. While in the early days of their relationship Stephanie had thought she was in love with him, she's now sick of the relationship and is trying to break it off. Conrad won't let her, threatening her with all sorts of things. She is a nervous wreck, but is about to make some big changes in her life that will shock her friends and Conrad.

While the back cover blurb makes one think that this is Barbara's story, LOVE BECOMES HER actually introduces thoroughly all four women, allowing the reader to get to know each one in good detail. But the love story aspect of the book is focused on Barbara, as she tries to deal with dating a much younger man. She is also concerned about this aspect of their relationship, because while her baby-making days are over, she knows that Michael may want children of his own, and this would definitely make or break their relationship. Their relationship seems fairy-tale perfect, but Barbara is hesitant to make this permanent. How well does she really know Michael?

A subplot that gets equal billing is the four women's decision to go into business together. With the help of Ann Marie's expertise, they buy a run down old brownstone, and decide to convert it into a spa for men. "PAUSE FOR MEN" is the name of their new business, and is also the title for this series of books by Donna Hill. This reviewer will definitely catch the next book in the series, as Donna Hill's writing makes the reading very refreshing, with the pages turning fast. This reviewer read the book in less than a day, because it was hard to put the book down. Her characters are well rounded and are believable, with their dialogue and the relationships overall between each other another factor as to why the story in itself was well worth reading. These are real women with real problems, each one dealing with their issues the best way she knows how. And while the women are all different, they do all seem to be strong willed-women, rising up to the occasion when needed.

LOVE BECOMES HER is the first book in the new Kimani Romance line that this reviewer has read, and it was a very good read. If the rest of the books in this line match up to the quality of this book, this reviewer will definitely continue to read them. Barbara's story in LOVE BECOMES HER was fun and entertaining, with a lot of humor as well as drama. Ann Marie's story, SAVING ALL MY LOVING, is up next and this reviewer has already pre-ordered her copy on Amazon. - courtesy of Loveromancesandmore

The story itself was good; however, the book in not about Barbara and Michael. The story is about four friends, the men in their lives and their familes. This book was not a story about Barbara and Micheal. It should have been one of those books written about four sepearte people, and not just claim to be Barbara's book. I was not happy that I had to weed through the book to find bits and pieces about Barbara and Michael.

My problem with this book was the love story was not the focus of the book. Michael the love interest was little more than a supporting character. The book was about the friendship of Barbara, Raquel, Ann Marie and Elizabeth. It was about the development of a men's spa Pause --- and that aspect of the story was rushed too. I read this book hoping to learn more about my protagonist and her feelings and her love story. I know just as much about her friends as I do about her. The female characters were well developed and interesting but the storyline was not about the love story of Michael and Barbara. I probably will not read the other books because this was such a disappointment.

I really enjoyed reading this novel, the only problem I had with it was, Barbara and Michael's relationship starts out of nowhere. Somebody please tell me what's up with Ann Marie? What kind of mother is she? Stephanie and her married boss Conrad...bad news from jump street, and Elizabeth and her husband Matt..when a man tells his unsuspecting wife that he wants a divorce, then wants her to move out the house so that he can move his mistress in, as Elizabeth would say...THAT BASTARD. I read previous novels by Ms. Hill and they're not as interesting as this and the book that I'm currently reading which by the way is Book 2 in the "Pause For Men" series. I have to say that book 2 is even better.

What a wonderful REAL story!!! I enjoyed these very real women going through very real situations! The story moved along very well -I wish there was a part two! GET THIS BOOK - A GOOD SUMMER READ!!!

I loved the story of Barbara finding love and over 40 to boot; that is me. but I would have liked to know how they met and all; I don't think I got that info; we just went right into the story unless there was a book before that. but I loved it once I did but that was my only thing.

Unlike the synopsis on the back of the book, "Love Become Her" is really a story of friendship between four women. Barbara, the advertised heroine, is one of four girlfriends, presumably all in their thirties and forties who are facing life changes and romantic happenings together. At the beginning of the story we are introduced to Michael, a younger man and professional athlete, who Barbara is fighting feelings for. We don't get the details of how they came to know each other, but meet them as the tension between whether they should or should not pursue a May-December romance is in full bloom.

Barbara's three friends, Ann Marie, Elizabeth and Stephanie encourage Barbara to give a relationship with Michael a chance even as they face difficult decisions of their own. The book is divided almost equally between following the stories of each of these women.

Ann Marie is mother to one daughter whom she's never truly known how to love unconditionally. Happy that her daughter was grown and on her own, Ann Marie literally freezes emotionally when her daughter leaves her husband and returns home to live with her Mom. The journey to find love and forgiveness for herself and then to reach out to her daughter is Ann Marie's portion of this story.

Elizabeth has been married, presumably happily, for more than 25 years. So when her husband announces that he is leaving her for a younger woman, her world falls apart. Elizabeth is left to try to put the pieces of her life together, luckily she has the support of her three friends and the distraction of a new joint business venture that they are pursing.

Finally, Stephanie is the footloose and fancy free friend of the bunch. A successful public relations executive, Stephanie major challenge is trying to find a way to get out of an adulterous relationship with her boss. Because she needs her job to help with a burden she has been carrying for years, it is a difficult task. However, once Stephanie opens up to her friends, she finds that she has all the support she needs to steer her life into a new direction.

Though the book is good, I was disappointed that it did not focus on the relationship of Barbara and Michael as I had expected from the synopsis. It is a reasonably good friendship novel, however, with each of the women dealing with life and romantic issues. Because it is the first in a proposed series, all of these women's stories are left unfinished for the most part - which left me a bit unsatisfied. Perhaps I'll pick up the next book to see what happens, however splitting the story so equally with little upfront character development didn't leave me attached enough to any of the women to wait with baited breath for the next book in the series.

This is the 1st in the series Pause for Men. This was a very vell written story but I found that it focused too much on the friendship between Barbara and her three best friends: Elizabeth, Stephanie and Ann Marie. The romance between Barbara and Michael gets overshadowed. These friends decide to start a spa business together: Pause for Men. Much of the story is spent dealing with issues the friends are going (divorce, feelings of unworthiness, guilt etc) through and how working on the spa helps them business wise as well as personally.

We are given insight into each of the four best friends character, since each is given a voice. But we never hear things from Michael's perspective. Also it doesn't really deal with the age difference between Barbara and Michael ( she is forty-nine and he is twenty-nine). My thing is we don't get to see them interact as a couple except with her friends who are very supportive. He is a professional basketball player, something like him dating a woman twenty years younger would be very new worthy.

I thought the book was great! Even though the plot of the book made it seem that the book would be focused on Barbara, it went into the lives of Elizabeth, Ann Marie and Stephanie as well. Nonetheless, that didn't stop me from relating to the characters and dilemma that each of them had to dealt with. Good job Donna!

LOVE BECOMES HER from the seasoned author Donna Hill is an excellent addition to her already well known Library. I particularly enjoyed this story because it was not only about the Hero and Heroine, Barbara and Michael, but about friendship between four friends and how each would always be there for the other.

LOVE BECOMES HER is an intriguing glimpse into the lives of four friends and how they handle problems presented.

I look forward to Ann Marie's story and a revisit with Barbara and Michael.

This is a fast read.