Ostensibly as part of a tourist party, Rose Culloden has come to Mt. Kineo, Maine in search of her husband David who disappeared almost a year before.  A Harvard professor, David has been there under an assumed name, but once again, he disappears before she can confront him.  While there, however, Rose is shocked to discover she is very attracted to the guide of their party, James Stewart, handsome and sexy but very gruff and almost antisocial.  One startling night, James lets her know in no uncertain terms he’s attracted to her, also, and now Rose is in a dilemma.  Technically, she’s married but because of David’s long and still-unexplained absence, she no longer feels that way, and the more she’s around James, the more she realizes she’s falling in love with him.

Working with a private detective, Rose follows David’s devious path to Florida and back to Maine again, learning more unbelievable things about her husband along the way.  Having known him since they were teenagers, she thought she knew him well and also that she loved him in spite of his being several years younger than she, but these revelations tell her she may never have known anything about David at all.  Now, her father-in-law informs her that her husband, who continued to do the accounts for his firm while teaching at Harvard, has embezzled several hundred thousand dollars from him, and the university is bringing charges of plagarism against him also.  Through it all, Rose has held her problems relatively aloof from James who’s supported her in her search.  Wanting to be entirely free to be with him, nevertheless she refuses to divorce David until she can confront him and get personal closure.  But will James wait that long?  And does she want him to?  Whenever the trail seems to get close to David, he simply disappears again, leaving behind more questions and more accusations, and no answers.  And then, Rose receives a letter in the mail, addressed to her in David’s handwriting…

MY OPINION:  Once I started this story, I didn’t want to put it down; unfortunately, other necessities—like getting a night’s sleep—interfered.  Nevertheless, I finished it the next day because I wanted to know why David had disappeared and if Rose and James would live happily ever after or not.  I admit Rose’s refusal to divorce David without confronting him made me want to yell at her:  “Wake up, woman!  You haven’t seen this guy in over a year.  He disappeared without an explanation.  You’ve got a wonderful man waiting for you.  What’s there think about?”  And the fact that she’d stay away from James and not even get in touch with him for months at a time—but he was still there when she needed him—was simply unbelievable. Wouldn’t we all want a man who’d wait...no matter how long it took?  I imagine in real life, James would’ve given up after the third month.  However, this is fiction, and as fiction, it worked within the context of Rose’s rationalizations.  Rose is characterized as a brave, independent woman stunned by the desertion of the man she thought loved her.  James is a delight, though he’s a little surly at first and that may make some readers hesitate to like him.  And David…?  Let’s just say he deserves everything he gets!  It’s nice to have a “mature” couple as the hero and heroine of a story for a change, and this one is suspenseful as well as sensual.  The Maine descriptions and using actual place names give it a realistic feel, making me want to see those beautiful forests and rugged craggy lakes.  I liked it, and I think you will, too!

(Love the cover, too.)

This novel was supplied by the author and no remuneration was involved in the writing of the review.