From Publishers Weekly
Childless, married Lily Spencer, 46, falls for 30-something widower Danny Malloy and his five-year-old son in this would-be Whartonesque marriage tale from former book editor Lustbader (Hidden). Lily's troubled marriage has led her to retreat to the small Catskill town of Stone Creek while husband Paul, 54, a successful Manhattan attorney, remains submerged in work. Paul and Lily have given up hope of having a child: Paul with brisk efficiency, Lily still mournful and yearning. When she and gifted, still-grieving furniture restorer Danny espy each other in the Stone Creek supermarket, sparks fly. As they come together, Lily finds in Danny the companionship Paul doesn't provide, and in Danny's son, Caleb, she finds a boy who needs a mother. As much as Lustbader tries to give Danny equal time, his struggles with a secretive, unforgiving mother-in-law never attain the resonance of Lily's search among an ex-husband, a current husband, a lover and a boy for someone with whom she can share her love and pain. Piercingly personal descriptions of love, loss and desperate attempts to plug life's gaps give Lustbader's second novel its emotional edge, while there's plenty of steam for romance readers. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Still reeling from the sudden loss of his young wife, master craftsman Danny Malloy narrows his world to focus on his precocious five-year-old son, Caleb. Knowing, however, that he needs to start reconnecting with family and friends, Danny reluctantly agrees to volunteer his woodworking skills in the renovation of a historic home for a local charity. With her domineering, work-obsessed husband increasingly away on business, this same charity fills a void in the life of Lily Spencer, whose smoldering anger over Paul’s prenuptial demand that the couple remain childless fuels her increasing sense of despair and frustration. Thrown together by their shared love of children and mutual sense of rejection, Danny and Lily find much-needed solace and support. Yet they are also confronted by a palpable emotional need and physical attraction that could be the best, or worst, thing that ever happened to them. Although themes of death and mourning, abandonment, and revenge run deep through Lustbader’s second novel, her characters’ ultimate resolutions communicate reassuringly affirmative and promising messages. --Carol Haggas
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