Judith‘s review of A Slower, Lower Love
Cait O’Kelley loved Bryce Delaney with all her heart. But loving him scared the hell out of her. Cait didn’t want to settle for being married to a cop and having his children. She wanted more. Unfortunately, more came with a price. After leaving her small town for a more glamorous life and working her way up the corporate ladder, a whirlwind affair with the boss’s son tears Cait’s world apart. On the brink of losing everything she’s worked for, she has to make a decision, and going back seems impossible.
After eight years of living without her, Bryce Delaney is charged with watching over Cait during her week long stay at her parents’ beach house in Bethany. She’s come there to sort out her life and while she’s contemplating her future, Cait and Bryce discover the fireworks are still there. But can they ever go back to where they once were? As his secrets begin to surface, Bryce sees only one way to save her. He disappears without a trace leaving Cait behind to pick up the pieces and deal with a whole host of new problems that she can neither explain away or hide.
With Bryce out of the way, his brother Kurt finds what he’s always dream of handed to him on a silver platter. After watching Bryce and Cait toying with each other for fifteen years, Kurt eagerly steps up to the plate. But is he strong enough to ground Cait and prevent her from making yet another mistake? And which brother will win her heart and show her that a slower, lower love is enough?
We have all been counseled to be careful: the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. And how many people–possibly some of us–have longed for life in another place, away from the familiar and possibly away from the small and slow and unexciting life of Small Town, USA? So it was with Cait O’Kelley, falling in love with her handsome fella, but recognizing that Bryce wanted forever long before she had experienced the “other side of the fence.” She wanted the big town life of Boston, the excitement of succeeding in corporate America, of knowing that she had successfully provided “the good life” for herself and proven her worth as a person and especially, as a woman. Yet the road to success is more often than not strewn with potholes that turn into emotional and professional sinkholes before our eyes. So it was for Cait as she saw everything she had worked for oozing away like a river of mud. She had the boss’s son in the palm of her hand–the diamond engagement ring, plans for the wedding of the decade, the position at one of Boston’s finest marketing firms–but she turned her back on the marriage (she really didn’t love him) and as a result, lost the job, too.
Now, with no job, no prospects, no real plan for moving forward, Cait retreats to her parent’s beach house in her home town on the Atlantic. The quiet of the town, the familiar and relentless swoosh of the waves on the shore, bring her back to a place where she begins to value the simpler aspects of her childhood. Add in the fact that the old flame, Bryce Delaney in the flesh, is now taking up space in the beach house next door. It was not long before the old feelings come to the surface and the love affair is “on again.”
This is a multi-layered, complicated novel in every sense of the word. It is messy just like life is messy, fraught with raw emotion and alive with feelings and the nerves of trying to make sense out of situations that defy explanation. Eight years earlier Cait had taken off. She just simply disappeared and it wasn’t until several days later that she let her family know where she was and that she wasn’t coming back. In a most hurtful and decisive way she let Bryce know that they were done. Now, after re-igniting the old flames and proclaiming their true feelings that had never died, Bryce disappears, only there is no sign of him for nearly three months. His apartment is empty, his car is gone, his police precinct knows nothing as to his whereabouts, and Cait is left with the same kind of emotional overload she shoved on Bryce eight years earlier. This story is not pretty in many ways. Readers who want frothy and frolicing love tales would do well to stay out of these pages because there is pain and disappointment, hurt and disillusionment aplenty. Add in the fact that Bryce’s brother wants Cait for himself, and the complications become even more complicated.
I own up to really liking these kinds of stories because they are real and their very messiness makes them real. As a helping professional I encounter messy lives constantly and this smacks of that kind of authentic living which makes loving so painful sometimes even as the flip side can be so beautiful and fulfilling. Ms Munro has written some wonderful stories in the past but I think this is one that has grabbed me more completely than others she has penned. Cait is strong and courageous to own up to the good that has come out of her years in Boston–her skills as a marketing executive are quite extensive–but she also is willing to face the chaos she left in her wake eight years earlier, not only in her personal relationship with Bryce but in her own family. She knows she has to find a way back to her mom and dad as well. Bryce is a man that has grown and matured and the very fact that he has waited for Cait, never knowing whether she will ever return, speaks of the depth of his true affection and his willingness to make a commitment to her that is lasting and enduring. That he is called upon to put that commitment to the supreme test is a tough and mind boggling decision. Just one more aspect to this story that is not easy but which adds to the compelling nature of the tale.
This is one of those novels that needs to be read and re-read. There is so much here and such depth that it will, in my opinion, take more than one read through to plumb those depths and identify all that is going on with the characters. So I recommend that lovers of romance novels with tension, authentic emotion, and essential humanity not miss this story. It is a full length novel and well worth the time and effort to explore.
I give it a rating of 5 out of 5.
You can read more from Judith at Dr. J’s Book Place.
This book is available from Rebel Ink Press. You can buy it here
WOW!! 5 of 5, I am so checking this one out right now. Great review as well, you have me hooked!