Still in My Heart
Grade : B

Still in My Heart wraps up Kathryn Smith's Ryland Brothers series. I've read two of the three preceding books with drastically different degrees of enjoyment, and so was a tad bit leery of this one, but it has as its theme one I particularly enjoy: Second Chance at Love. I am pleased to say that I liked Still in My Heart very well indeed and found it to be a thoroughly engrossing character-driven romance.

Ten years ago, Brahm Ryland was engaged to Lady Eleanor Durbane. During a house party at her home, a drunken Brahm staggered into his room and had sex with the person waiting in his bed, thinking it was Eleanor. It was not Eleanor, but her sister, Lydia, who was not there by accident. Engagement ended, tossed out of the house, Brahm gave free rein to his alcoholic tendencies for the next eight years, making his name a byword for outrageous behavior, including one memorable ball where he relieved himself in the hostess's punchbowl. Things came to a head when a drunken carriage race resulted in his father's death, and left Brahm with a permanent limp and the impetus to change his ways. He has been sober for two years now and is just starting to be accepted in society once more, when he receives an invitation from Eleanor's father for another house party. Brahm is surprised, but leaps at the chance to formally apologize to Eleanor, to prove he's a changed man and to perhaps see if there is any chance for a future with her.

Since her engagement ended, Eleanor has devoted herself to caring for her four younger sisters. At 32, she is the only one unmarried and thinks herself content taking care of her father, whose health is failing. She knows that this house party is a thinly veiled attempt on his part to get her married off and settled, and she is horrified to find that Brahm is one of the party. She, like him, has never managed to erase the other from her mind, and her feelings are deeply ambivalent about seeing him again.

Eleanor and Brahm have several discussions and she fairly quickly accepts his explanation for what happened that long ago evening and agrees to let him try to earn her forgiveness. But she is, and rightly so, very wary. She is not sure that she can trust him and it would be all too easy to be hurt again. Trust is a major issue for Eleanor, and, given their history, she does not bestow it easily. I appreciated this aspect of the novel, that Eleanor wasn't a pushover and quick to leap back into Brahm's arms. They spend the next few weeks of the house party getting to know each other as they are now, as opposed to what they were like then. But their history together enhances the growing relationship.

Brahm is in instantly sympathetic character. He has paid dearly for his past mistakes and works hard at maintaining his sobriety. Smith does a particularly good job of portraying his struggle with drink, and the difficulties of living in a society where one is surrounded by alcohol. Brahm knows there is no "cure" to alcoholism, it is a battle won on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis. But he is well aware of all it has cost him, and though he doesn't really expect Eleanor to love him again, he cannot help but long for it.

After the intense character study and slow evolution of relationship which preceded it, the last quarter of the book suddenly becomes very busy with increased machinations by sister Lydia to separate Eleanor and Brahm and the advent of a plot device I dreaded throughout the entire book, and one which I'm sure you can guess. The results and subsequent actions by the leads from this point on made the book more ordinary.

But, if you like character driven novels, with leads whose own character strengths and flaws, for the most part, compel the action, and who have to change and grow in order to get their HEA, then I can recommend Still in My Heart.

Reviewed by Cheryl Sneed
Grade : B

Sensuality: Hot

Review Date : August 30, 2005

Publication Date: 2005/09

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Cheryl Sneed

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