True North, the first effort by newcomer Beverly Brandt, is your basic opposites-attract story, told with a depth of feeling and character development that is hard to resist. If you can get past certain instances of questionable behavior, especially on the heroine’s part, you will find yourself drawn in to a touching love story of two people who have no idea what they need in life, or in love, until they find each other.

Claire Brown is a successful workaholic, but sees her relationship with her fiancé Bryan starting to slip away. So she gives him a huge birthday present: a week-long vacation Hunter’s Lodge, an outdoorsy-type heaven. It’s not really her thing, but she springs for the best the lodge has to offer, plus first class tickets, in the hopes that all that luxury and togetherness will inspire the two of them to a new emotional intimacy. But there are a few problems. First, her first-class ticket is cancelled, forcing her to purchase another ticket in the only space left, coach. Then, when she finally arrives at the Lodge for the vacation she’s worked so hard (and spent so much of her savings) for, it turns that Bryan is already there, enjoying his birthday gift – with his new girlfriend. Due to a credit card twist, Claire finds herself put up in the employees-only extra room – complete with a tiny cot, and shared employee showers – instead of the luxurious suite with king size bed and personal hot tub for which she’d paid. But she’s been preparing for this vacation too long to give up on it now. Still, it’s guaranteed to be a long week, especially since her next door neighbor is the lodge’s owner, a handsome but irritating man named John McBride, who doesn’t appear to like her any better than she likes him.

If there’s one thing John hates, it’s women for whom business comes before everything else in life – love, family, happiness. His mother is just such a woman, and so is his ex-wife Delilah, the woman who divorced him after he left the promise of promotion in the FBI behind for a life that involved no dead bodies and broken lives, only vacations of a lifetime. So when he finds himself forced to rescue his new workaholic guest, not once but repeatedly, and watch her work her vacation away, he’s irritated – and attracted. Before long, she has him questioning his relationship with his mother Mary Jane(who shows up for a visit), and with Claire herself, as well as his concept of what he really wants in life. And that’s just in the first few days.

The character development is excellent in this book, particularly in terms of the female characters. The book explores what drives a person to become a workaholic – especially a woman – and, to some extent, whether that’s a good thing or not. In Claire’s situation, work is a refuge, a place to be needed and loved, unlike in her relationships with her distant, manipulative parents, or with her lousy string of ex-boyfriends and fiancés. In Mary Jane’s case, she’s watched her husband and son form a tight, exclusive bond, and realized that home was not where she’s needed, so she decided to do something for herself. In her cosmetics corporation, she found a comfort, solace, and feeling of achievement that all the baked cookies and scrubbed floors in the world could never bring her. But the cost is an even greater distance between herself and her son. While these situations are excellently and touchingly portrayed, I found myself vaguely uncomfortable that they focused only on the two prominent female characters in the story, and never dealt with workaholism in men. Whether that speaks to the idea that men would feel less anxiety or regret over putting work above family, or simply plot convenience, I don’t know. But while I greatly enjoyed the foray into the causes of this condition, I was left with the nagging feeling that this is the book the feminists warned us about.

In any case, the portrayals of family in the book were both touching and heartbreaking, since Claire never resolved her issues with her seemingly-inhuman family. But the characters – especially Claire, John, and Mary Jane – learned a lot about themselves over the course of the story, even if it sometimes took them a while. And in a very nice subplot, an auxiliary character drew on the confidence that her new experiences in the wilderness had given her, allowing her to stand up to her emotionally abusive and sexually predatory husband.

As if there weren’t enough going on in this story, Claire – who insists on working most of the week, despite John’s protests – uncovers a fraudulent scam run by a top executive. The perpetrator will do anything to keep his secret from getting out – including killing Claire. It’s a subplot that lends some nice, suspenseful tension to the later part of the book. However, another subplot involving a threat to John by someone he once put behind bars sort of peters out, leaving the reader feeling vaguely cheated.

Neither Claire nor John is an angel, certainly, and their character depth will most likely allow you to overlook their fairly minor sins, but when Bryan and his new squeeze seem to be everywhere – usually scantily clad, and with their hands all over each other – Claire’s larcenous instincts are stirred not once, but three times. This was probably supposed to be funny, but for the most part made me cringe every time “evil Claire” took over. In addition, she’s pretty bratty and rude, particularly at the beginning of the book, which made her somewhat hard to warm up to. In the end, it’s her willingness to realize that she was wrong, and the soul-searching that leads her to that decision that save her.

Overall, this is a truly impressive first novel, and I look forward to Ms. Brandt’s second effort. And when you read this – and I strongly suggest you do – so will you.