Romance Annoation

Title:                Summer’s Child

Author:            Luanne Rice

Publisher:        Random House Publishing Group, 2005

Genre:             Romance, Romance-Mystery, Women’s Fiction

Page Count:    432 pg.

Setting:            Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia; modern day

Subjects:         Missing Persons – Fiction

                        Pregnant Women – Fiction

                        Connecticut – Fiction

                        Nova Scotia – Fiction

 Synopsis:    What happened to Mara Jameson?  Nine years after a pregnant, young newly-wed disappears from her front yard in Hartford, Connecticut one evening, the yellow rain boots she wore to water the garden left neatly behind, this question continues to haunt her neighbors, her grandmother, and the retired police detective who was never able to solve the case of her disappearance.  Had she been abducted?  Had her husband harmed her and her unborn child?  The journey for answers stretches all the way to Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia, a seaside town located at the end of the Earth.

                    In Cape Hawk, Lily Malone, a shop owner, raises her nine-year-old daughter, Rose, on this beautiful and treacherous coast, far from the pain and tragedy of her past with the help of the Nanouks—a group of women who have bonded over the hardship in their lives and the shared sense that they are survivors.  Rose, who lives bravely with a congenital heart defect, inspires the love and loyalty of her best friend Jessica—who harbors secrets of her own—and the devotion of Liam Neill, a scientist who carries with him the scars of his childhood suffering.  In the great, frozen North, Lily Malone turns to Liam for strength as she faces a mother’s greatest fear—losing her child—and it is in the wake of this trial that Lily discovers the depths of her own feelings for the man she tried to push away and realizes that together the two of them have a chance at finding happiness and purpose.

Appeal:        This book would be appealing to fans of romance, as it employs many of the tropes of the genre: a strong woman faces down the shadows of a tragic past while finding love with a damaged, but devoted man who adores her.  While not precisely within the realm of romantic suspense (many of the characters are running from something, but there is no imminent danger), there is an element of tension typically associated with the mystery genre.  Luanne Rice gives the reader all the pieces of the puzzle and dares them to figure it out.

Similar Works:             Distant Shores by Kristin Hannah

                                    Three Wishes by Barbara Delinsky

                                    Hart’s Hollow Farm by Janet Dailey