What happened to Harlequin Super Romance? Sometime last year, they lost 50 pages. That’s a real disappointment, since HSR was my favorite series line, but their more complicated stories are harder to squeeze into just 240 pages. Sigh… I guess that’s one more reason I haven’t been reading series romance.
The Man She Once Knew by Jean Brashear (HSR 1595)
(2009, Contemporary Series) 8/28/10
Grade: 3
Sixteen years after a trip to Oak Hollow changed her life, Callie Hunter returns for her aunt’s funeral. She intends to leave as quickly as possible, but David Langley, the onetime town hero turned ex-con, needs her help. How could things have gone so wrong for David, and how can she make up for the sins of the past?
This book was so frustrating. It had great characters and an interesting story, but they were forced into a book that was at least 100 pages too short. Huge chunks of the story were cut off or completely left out in order to meet the page count. That’s why I can’t recommend it despite its many good qualities. These characters deserved more. There were hints of greater depth in the characters – David, the golden boy who spent 15 years in prison, and was struggling to survive on the outside. Callie, the onetime rebel and bad girl who fought her way out of a miserable home to become a lawyer and prosecutor. I kept getting flashes of what the book could have been.
This seemed like the perfect example of a story that belonged in a single title. But where are the serious contemporary single title romances? They’re practically nonexistent these days.
Karen Wheless
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