Communicating with Values Book

Caroline runs a small art supplies shop near the beach, where she tries to escape her past, something that happened seventeen years ago.

Jack Fitzgerald, who is back at his childhood home after seventeen years, remembers Caroline Tremayne, a girl who had moved into their neighbourhood when she was sixteen. He remembers his attraction to her and also the way she had broken his trust.

Thirty-seven to her thirty-four, they had parted on very bitter terms, with Jack blaming her for terminating her pregnancy all those years back. And our hero is clearly not a young 'un, with a divorce and a heart attack in the recent past. They came from different classes, she the daughter of a dignified doctor whereas he the son of an alcoholic philanderer.

A second chance story, this didn't click with me. Maybe because of the huge gap, seventeen years felt too long. Coming from parents like his, no wonder Jack was the way he was. But, his hatred towards Caroline seemed a trifle too much. He always acts like a bastard, never once even trying to think what she went through. And I felt so bad for Caroline, she didn't have anyone to share her feelings for seventeen years. There's also Dr Nicholas Brandon, her father's friend, who's just as condescending as her father. And also a creep.

When finally they have 'the talk', it's so ghastly, what happened to her all those years ago. What a pig! Both Charles Tremayne and Nicholas Brandon. I loved how the author placed a confrontation between Nicholas and Jack, just where one was needed what with Charles being no longer alive.

From so much hurt, how they come together again is how this story ends, with a hint towards their future.