7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truly Touching, April 15, 2002
This review is from: Rivers Of The Soul (Indigo: Sensuous Love Stories) (Mass Market Paperback)
Rivers of the Souls is a soul stirring love story. Antoinette "Toni" and Jerome were high school sweethearts who went their separate ways after high school and through fate, crossed each other's paths twenty years later. But was that love really lost or were Toni and Jerome just going through the motions?
Twenty years seems like a lifetime and things have changed tremendously with their families, friends and themselves. While this story explores Toni and Jerome's emotions at the changes and needs in their lives, it also examines that of their friends and families. Buddy and Snoop are Jerome's friends from back in the day and Val and Trace, while married respectively to the aforementioned, are friends of Toni. Toni's father is remarried to meddlesome May and Toni's sister Adrienne is a free spirit living in Los Angeles. The relationship between Toni, Adrienne and May is touched upon but you feel that there has to be more. And of equal importance is Aunt Pearline who spouts her own brand of wisdom. The secondary characters are very important to this story as it gives the novel its completeness.
Leslie Esdaile has crafted a touching story utilizing metaphors, foreshadowing, detail, debates and loose ends to leave you hanging to await the sequel. This is not a neatly packaged romance novel where everything is happily ever after because when completed, you have no idea what the future holds for the characters. Excellent story!
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shirley, DRAMA, DRAMA AND MORE DRAMA!!!, November 17, 2001
This review is from: Rivers Of The Soul (Indigo: Sensuous Love Stories) (Mass Market Paperback)
RIVERS OF THE SOUL was an exceptional read. It was a humorous, painful journey through one's soul. The main characters Toni and Jerome have been in love with each other for twenty years and their envious friends and their own personal insecurities destroy their budding relationship. The novel takes place with the characters meeting each other twenty years later, but before they can truly be together they must take a soul searching journey into their hearts and minds and purge themselves of all the bagga ge and dirty laundry they have been carrying around. On this journey they find out that many of their friends are jealous of them because of what they think they have accomplished. This was a profound and enlightening novel, and I guarantee you will enjoy it tremendously and it will be a conversation piece for many years.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Get Swept Away with the Flow...!, February 21, 2002
This review is from: Rivers Of The Soul (Indigo: Sensuous Love Stories) (Mass Market Paperback)
Is it true that your first, REAL love is your only love? Well, maybe not for everyone, but that certain was the case for Jerome and Toni.
Toni is still reeling from a bad divorce and a husband who didn't have a clue what the word 'respect' means. After doing everything she possibly could to keep her marriage together, Toni has been forced to throw in the towel and call it quits. When she returns to her roots in Philly, she finds that more has changed than just her marital status. Friends who she thought she could count on suddenly get funky on her. If not her homegirls then their husbands. A single woman among married ones tend to 'kick up a lot of dust,' and unreasonably, some of her friends seem to be seized more by fear than sympathy.
On Jerome's end of town, things are rapidly going from bad to worse. Again, here is another person with a spouse who doesn't know, nor wants to know the meaning of respect. Jerome has realized for a long time his marriage is over, but for the sake of his children, he is determined to stick it out. When that no longer becomes an option, he learns some hard and fast rules about friendship and making it on your own. He also learns that angels can come in the most unexpected forms, and that sometimes, it is okay to let someone help you.
When Toni and Jerome reconnect, it is all they can think about. However, Jerome is convinced that his blue collar living will never be good enough for Toni's business accomplishments. Toni is convinced that no longer being the slim-goody she was when she and Jerome were together, there is no way he would or could, ever want to be with her. Waiting for these two to wake up and smell the coffee is wonderfully nerve-wracking. Through their separate journeys to a new awareness of self and others, Toni and Jerome learn some valuable lessons in life, friendships, family and love.
I enjoyed every minute of this book. While there is some drama, it is quiet drama; realistic, everyday living, drama. One of the things that I most appreciated about this book is that Ms. Esdaile shows that you don't have to be a perfect size 8 to find love and that not every man is LOOKING for a perfect size 8. Some men find a fuller woman sexy and yes, BEAUTIFUL. WAY TO GO MS. ESDAILE!!! Ms. Esdaile develops her characters so believably, flaws and all, that you feel like you know these people. You care about them. This book brought a tear or two or three to my eyes. I can't wait to read the sequel, which I understand is due out [sometime}...this year. I look forward to reading some of her other works. If they are anything like this, I am sure I will enjoy every one of them!
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