Thursday, September 15, 2022

Review: Going Home, At Your Age? by Jacqueline Diamond


Genre: Romance

Description:

“Her hidden past is about to explode!

Sara returns to her hometown for Christmas, to face her sisters—and the man she left behind—with a stunning secret. The baby she gave up for adoption years ago is having her own baby, and wants her to be the grandma.

Young, pregnant and feeling abandoned, Sara rebelled against everyone she knew, including the man she secretly loved. Now, about to celebrate her 50th birthday, can she finally claim the family that should have been hers, right old wrongs, and find the home she believed lost forever?”

Author:

Jacqueline Diamond has written numerous books in multiple genres, primarily romances and mysteries, over her more than forty years as a published author.

For more, visit her website and like her Facebook page.

Appraisal:

While this book fits the basic plot that all books classified in the romance genre are expected to conform to, it illustrates how much the specifics used to make up that story can vary from the norm and still make for a comfortable fit. The premise of the story, that the protagonist, Sara, had put a newborn baby up for adoption and, due to conflict with much of her family fled her hometown decades ago, having only minimal communication with them and not returning to visit is certainly not a typical romance setup.

However, through the current state of the art in DNA testing and DNA databanks, Sara is now headed home to meet the daughter she gave birth to, who had a great childhood, but is now pregnant herself and wants to give Sara a chance to step in as the grandmother in place of her adoptive parents who are both deceased. Of course, for this to work Sara is also going to need to make some contact with her estranged family, old friends, which includes the guy who got away who some incorrectly thought was the father of her baby. I’ll give you one guess who the potential romantic partner will be.

Yeah, I said potential in the last paragraph, but if you know anything about the romance genre you know how it is going to end up. That’s part of the definition of the genre. But the journey is the reward and, in the case of this book the route the journey is going to take is much harder to guess and much more complex than a typical romance novel since we’ve got the family, friends, and the guy in question with 30-ish years of connections, baggage, and history that has been built while Sara was out of the picture. It makes for a unique story with more complications and difficulties than you’ll typically see in a romance, yet I found it easy to believe something like this could happen in real life. Probably already has.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is the third book a the “Sisters, Lovers & Second Chances” series, however, it stands alone. I assume the plot of those in the series have some common aspects, but each story can be read without having read the others.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 60-65,000 words

No comments: