With an interesting premise of a formerly married couple trying to move on after a tragedy and meeting again, Husband and Wife Reunion unfortunately doesn’t meet its potential. The author spends more time on an unsatisfying stalker mystery than exploring the reasons why a marriage between two characters might end, then begin again.

Motivated by the disappearance of her son five years earlier, Julianna is writing a series of articles about the abductions of children. She’s been through therapy, but nothing besides writing has helped her survive both the disappearance of her son and the end of her marriage. But one of her articles garnered the unwanted attention of a stalker, who now sends her threatening messages.

Julianna retreats to the security of the home of her former father-in-law, Abe. Even after her divorce from Luke, she remained close to the cranky old man, although she’s not on good terms with her ex-husband. Then again, neither is Abe. So when Luke, a detective, unexpectedly shows up in the middle of the night needing a place to crash after being given time off a case, unwanted tension and unnecessary reminders of the past jump to the fore.

Luke and Julianna pretend that they have moved on, but obviously, they haven’t. Many possibilities are mentioned for how and why their marriage ended, yet the one thing is clear: both Luke and Julianna have unresolved issues of blame and guilt and neglect.

The abduction of a child is a tragedy, but somehow the author never makes it feel real. For most of the story, the reader learns very little about the child who disappeared or how and why. Julianna tends to relive the horror of what happened after her son disappeared, but she doesn’t dwell on the child himself, save for a few general details here and there. I simply didn’t learn enough about him or his parents to really be invested in his disappearance. I wanted to feel more for Luke and Julianna and what they went through, but I never felt like I got to know them.

For much of the book, they pretend to act normally and casually around each other. Though there are obviously huge unresolved issues in-between them, they refuse to discuss them and instead act like there is no problem. Case in point: Luke is outraged by Julianna’s articles, but he doesn’t confront her, his behavior just turns slightly colder. Eventually, the lack of progress and communication becomes frustrating and tedious. Even after they fall into bed together, they agree to dismiss that as unimportant.

The author drops an interesting tidbit on how they struck sparks when they first met: Julianna was arrested by Luke at an environmental protest, but tidbits such as these are not enough. Everything I find interesting about the setup, such as how exactly they fell in love, and why it ended, remained only superficially explored. The two spend so much time in denial about why their marriage failed and make so little progress as the story progresses that the manner by which they finally resolve the issue failed to ring true.

The mysteries that surround them also tend to be too distracting and unfortunately, not very well-plotted. Besides the stalker, there are a number of subplots that failed to draw me in, perhaps because the author would provide details on one, and then switch to another on a whim. To make matters worse, the main mystery ends and is resolved in a very cheap and unearned way.

Only a facile and superficial explanation for the failure of Luke and Julianna’s first marriage was ever provided, and I didn’t finish the book with any certainty that they’d do any better the second time around.