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40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sexual Content: PG-13, October 9, 2000
This review is from: Seventh Heaven (Mass Market Paperback)
Marilee Nelson is haunted by a terrible secret (and yes, it is a very bad one). It's a secret she will share with no one, including her fiance Joe Lakota. Rather than confide in him, Marilee breaks their engagement and convinces Joe that she has left him for someone else. Heartbroken, Joe leaves for the big city and embarks on a high profile professional football career. Seventh Heaven begins ten years later... Having recently been granted custody of his 4-year-old son Zachary, 31-year-old Joe Lakota moves back to his hometown in Oregon to raise him. After ten years, he is still and will always be in love with Marilee Nelson. All of their lives--clear up until she broke off their engagement ten years past--the couple had been best friends, inseparable from the time she was five and he was eight. It doesn't take Joe long to figure out that his boyhood sweetheart had lied about leaving him for another man, nor does it take him long to figure out her secret, or at least, a fundamental part of it. The problem for Joe now is figuring out how to get through to Marilee and pick up where they left off ten years ago. Marilee never stopped loving Joe, but she doesn't feel any more able to confide in him at age 28 than she had at age 18. There were valid reasons why Marilee kept her secret and as far as she can tell, those reasons haven't changed. But Joe won't give up on her or the love they have shared all of these years. When Joe's ex-wife (who was abusive to their son) petitions to regain custody, Joe asks Marilee to help him in the courts by marrying him. Marilee realizes she has been handed a second chance at happiness with Joe, but will she find the courage to take it? The irony of Seventh Heaven is that for the first half of the novel Marilee comes across as a cliche "wilting flower" heroine...not a personal favorite of mine. Marilee's reaction to her secret feels out of proportion to the secret itself, not in terms of the intensity of her reaction, but in terms of the duration (ten years) of it. But then in the second half, the reader learns alongside the hero that even if we might have thought we knew the extent of Marilee's secret, we didn't really have a clue as to how gruesome and appalling it truly is. At this point in the book, Marilee seems more like a warrior than a wilting flower. She only gets better and better as she allows herself to get in touch with her anger and emotions for the first time in ten years. There are a couple of spots in the novel's first half where the pace of the book slows down a bit, though not so much as to bore you. The last half of Seventh Heaven is extremely fast-paced and more than compensates for any lagging moments experienced in the first half. As the reader learns more and more of Marilee's secret, and then again when a murder and an indictment come into play, it becomes next to impossible to put this book down. -full review originally published in The Romance Reader -see profile for breakdown of sexual content ratings
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Definite tear jerker, February 14, 2006
This review is from: Seventh Heaven (Mass Market Paperback)
On the heels of a costly divorce and custody battle, former NFL star Joe Lakota decides to bring stability to his son's life out of the lenses of paparazzi. He returns to the small Oregon town where he grew up to take a coaching job, and hopes to hook up with his childhood sweetheart, who summarily dumped him while in college with no explanation.
Already forewarned by her brother in law that she not only did not leave him for another, but for the most part has led a solitary existence, Joe feels betrayed. When Joe firsts bumps into Mari, he is shocked to find that she is not the bright and shiny gal she used to be. Instead, she is skittish, and afraid to be alone with him. For the most part, she has spent the last ten years as a shut in, with lucrative career writing and illustrating children's books.
He talks Mari into babysitting for his son while his mother is recuperating, making promises that he will not try any funny stuff. He rightly guesses that the reason for her wariness is that she is the victim of date rape. But until he is able to get to the root of her demons, he cannot fathom how horrific the crime was.
Joe's ex-wife suddenly makes noises that she wants to regain custody, and he reluctantly asks Mari to join him in a marriage of convenience to protect his parental rights, and after a little cajoling, she agrees. When he discovers the nature of Mari's rape, he goes into a rage, and threatens to kill the perpetrator, who suddenly winds up dead, and Joe is the prime suspect.
On one hand, the story is a tragic tale of lost innocence, trust, faith, and redemption. But there were several missed opportunities. The ex, Valerie is such a vile person, though we only know this second hand (and the custody battle is never really addressed other than a wrap up in the end). I agree with other readers that Mari's sudden turnaround after 10 years seems hasty - perhaps one can chalk it up to Joe's sexual prowess. I did love the relationship between father and son - it was totally believable (loved his term of endearment - "sprout"). Overall it was an entertaining story that will leave you with a couple of tears and many smiles.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well done, exciting book., September 19, 2000
This review is from: Seventh Heaven (Mass Market Paperback)
After a bitter divorce and custody battle, pro football player Joe Lakota returned home to the small town of Laurel Creek, Oregon, to start over. The woman he loved all those years, Marilee Nelson, was there waiting for him, but her past caught up with her when Joe proposed marriage. This emotionally charged and poignant book is quite human, with the imperfections making the story and characters all the more real. Marilee copes with an anxiety disorder while Joe does his best to be a single father. Catherine Anderson takes us on a real roller coaster ride, with a thrilling, beautiful result.
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