Promise Me A Rainbow

Lovely and heart-rending story about two people who lost love and found it again. Joe is widower and father of three, still very much grieving his beloved wife and struggling to connect emotionally with his youngest child, precocious little Fritz, who is wise beyond her seven years and yet achingly so sensitive and with fears and needs that she finds hard to articulate to him. Catherine is a divorcee coming to terms with her failure to give her ex-husband the child they both crave. I love, that she doesn't shy away from it, that she tackles everything head on. That her subfertility did not stop her from taking on the role of teacher and mentor to troubled pregnant teens or to buy a quirky little mother and child gnomes figurine or to open her heart to a gnome-loving Little girl. I love, that Joe, after an initial momentary hesitancy, consciously and fearlessly tumbled head over heels for Catherine. What annoyed me was his failure to reveal the wicked machinations of his sister-in-law and hence implicitly allowed her to continue her influence over his elder daughter and her deceitful behaviour towards Michael, Joe's brother. The writing is quite captivating and there were some really moving scenes especially between Fritz and Catherine.

A really good story about people finding happiness unexpectedly. As usual with Cheryl Reavis we have a finely woven plot linking characters in the most unusual and heartwarming ways. This is a romantic story but also a story about a family or forming new families.
The characters are wonderfully layered and complex: Joe and Catherine, both with emotional scars and a lot of baggage, Joe’s children, and the other secondary characters.
The dialogue is vivid – although sometimes Fritz’s utterances seem much older than her years – and the action had enough twists to keep me interested until the end.
I found it cute that the frequent telephone calls between characters reveal a not so recent historical period, but the story is still a powerfully emotional read.
Some aspects were not solved as well as I would like – with Joe’s recalcitrant daughter, Della, or with his evil sister-in-law – but those were minor details.
4 solid stars!