Customer Reviews

Sara's Son (Harlequin Superromance, No. 1428)

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I wasn't sure what to expect from this unconventional story, but it turned out that I loved it.

Sara was a schoolgirl when she sneaked out to attend a frat party. She's woken in the morning, violently ill and covered in bruises. There is strong evidence she'd been raped by three men - which was the case with or without her consent because she was underage. However, she has no memory of what happened, and nor do the three young men who are eventually tracked down through scientific evidence.
Sara becomes pregnant from that night, and the three men are sent to prison.

Twenty-one years later, the baby boy Sara gave up for adoption has grown up and has come to find his birth mother. Something more than a suspicious sexual encounter took place that night, and he's investigating. That means tracking down one of the men who was imprisoned.

This is a challenging book, because no matter how you look at it, the hero did something against the law. He's aware of this, and is desperate for any memories of that night; he wants to know why he would ever have done something like that. He has to struggle with the stigma of being a registered sex offender, which has essentially destroyed his life. I loved that he'd reached a place in his mind where he accepted the awful turn his life took, and tried to make the most of it. His first encounter with Sara after all those years was powerful and heartbreaking.
The night of the party is surrounded by more than one crime, and many, many lies, and the way the author draws you in and gradually reveals the truth was brilliantly-done.

The romance does not develop fast, with the hero and heroine not even having any page time together until about a third of the way through. Usually this would annoy me, but here it was not only necessary, but it also allowed the interesting lead characters to develop their own strong story arcs. It surprised me, but I couldn't put this book down.

Sara's Son was definitely one of the best Superromances I have read. There is a connected book about the son - TRUSTING RYAN.

Over two decades ago in Maricopa, Ohio unmarried teenager Sara Lindsay got drunk at a party. While intoxicated, she apparently participated in group sex. Nine months later she gave birth to a boy whom she gave up for adoption.

Now that child, Westerville police officer Ryan Mercedes, visits married Sara Calhoun with the claim that he believes the incident covered up a murder. They look up registered sex offender Mark Dalton, who went to prison along with two other men for statutory rape, a crime he does not remember doing as he too was drunk at the time. Over the objection of her cheating spouse, the trio decides the time is right to learn what really happened at that notorious party over twenty-one years ago.

The cast including adoptive parents Glen and Harriet who help makes this a fascinating tale from the opening scene when Ryan visits Sara and tells her he is her son and never slows down until the DNA test proves who sired the child. Although the murder suspicion and subsequent investigation seems a stretch at first as a way to exonerate Mark, fans will appreciate how Tara Taylor Quinn makes it seem plausible. Filled with angst, a strong cast, suspense and second chances, SARA'S SON is a delightful contemporary.

Harriet Klausner