Tracy’s review of Written in Stone
Dumped five days before her wedding,
Cassandra Hall decides not to waste the honeymoon. She sets off to London. What was supposed to be her dream week turns into a nightmare time of introspect, self-doubt. Then she meets James, literally falling at his feet in an attempt to save his Afghan hound from colliding head on with the traffic.
James is witty, charming, too good-looking and also–not available. Despite this, Cassie is captivated by him. What follows is a week of fun, companionship and a bonding that Cassie has never experienced.
James, sensing Cassie’s unhappiness, goes out of his way to make up for her jerk of a fiancé’s rejection. He is drawn to her vulnerability–something he finds disturbing, threatening to shatter all he thought he knew about himself. Cassie, he senses, is falling in love with him. He ought to back away but cannot. Cassie bravely makes her true feelings known and when he rejects her, he knows he has broken her heart. He is left confused, guilty because….James has a secret.
Cassie is not doing well while sitting on a park bench in London. You see she’s on her honeymoon, but she’s alone because her fiancé – who she can admit to herself she really didn’t love anyway – called off the wedding just a few days before it occurred. Due to a dog that’s trying to escape its keeper Cassie meets James and her life changes forever. Though the pair have their ups and downs they form a friendship but Cassie finds herself falling in love with James. James however is involved with Alex. They are currently on a break but James, despite trying so hard not to, finds himself having feelings for Cassie as well. He feels that Cassie is the other half of his soul but he’s confused about how he can feel so much for Cassie when he knows he loves Alex.
Cassie eventually, and not in a good way, that Alex is a man and that James is in fact, gay. She is devastated and heads home to deal with the life that had fallen apart before she’d met James. That was just icing on the cake. She tries to move on and allow herself to forget about James but it’s just impossible. What will she do without James in her life?
This was an incredibly emotional book. At first Cassie and James together were so much fun and I loved seeing them together and really bringing out the best in the other. But I knew almost immediately that Alex was a guy and that James was gay. Of course I kept wondering exactly where that would leave Cassie as I wanted her and James to be together. The story went places that I would have never imagined in a million years it would have gone and frankly I’m not quite sure how I feel about what happened. This is a romance but it’s truly heartbreaking in more than one part of the book for all parties involved.
I got the impression from the book that it was trying to say that the heart loves who it loves and really there are no boundaries to who you can love whether you’re gay or straight. I got that, really, I did. But can a gay man be happy in the end with a woman…forever? I just don’t know if I bought it. Yes, it was very sweet and tender and moving but I just couldn’t keep my skepticism under wraps while reading the end of the book.
So how do I rate the book? I have absolutely no clue! While I liked the book for the most part and I felt it was well written there were a few issues I had with it that I can’t seem to get past.
Writing and emotional aspects of the book: 4.25 out of 5
“Straight for you” theme: 3 out of 5
You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place
This book is available from MuseItUp Publishing. You can buy it here
If you’d like to read a similar theme but with perhaps a more realistic approach (I say perhaps since I haven’t read this book and am just going by your review) I highly recommend The Object of My Affection by Stephen McCauley. (But NOT the movie, which completely inverted the theme of the book.) — willaful
Oo, you used straight for you!! I guess it all comes down to how much you’re willing to suspend core belief that you can’t change gay (just like we suspend for GFY stories). And then I have to wonder what that does to the core value that being gay is not only ok, but it’s just a part of who you are and can’t be changed. However, since i didn’t read the book, I don’t know if any themes of bisexuality come through or if there is any other element that affects the story. And I don’t mean to wonder if the author has any agenda at all, just wondering if the book perpetuates that misconception unintentionally or if it can be taken as a nugge out of time. Either way, I don’t know if i can fully believe in a SFY HEA.
Willaful – Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll have to look that one up.
Lori – Yep – SFY! lol
I guess in my heart I just can’t believe that a man who is gay could stay with a woman for life and be completely, utterly happy. It’s not like he was trying to decide whether he was gay or not – and there was no mention of bisexuality – he was definitely gay. IDK – it definitely got me thinking. 🙂