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Rice's Crazy in Love and other novels were about women with privileged lives who had problems resolving family relationships or facilitating marital communication, who needed more independence or artistic fulfillment. Here she sacrifices subtlety and wit for a more conventional romantic tale whose protagonist is a young mother cast in emotional limbo after the death of her four-year-old daughter and the loss of her husband to another woman. The narrative opens with a blaze in the childhood home of heroine Anne Davis. Anne, who has returned to this New England sanctuary to try to deal with her grief, escapes from the flames?but then runs back in to retrieve her child's possessions. She's rescued by firefighter Thomas Devlin, a man horribly scarred in a fire that claimed his wife's life more than a decade earlier. As might be expected, Anne rekindles a long-dormant spark in Thomas's heart ("Something about the woman... made him know he'd found a kindred soul. Just looking into her eyes was like living a lifetime"); in turn, she disregards his scarred features, as if to prove she's not superficial. Yet their romance seems ill-starred. Anne is snubbed by her hometown's down-at-the-heel residents, including her own sister, for being being both beautiful and wealthy?especially when her husband desperately wants her back. Indeed, it is hard to warm up to Anne, who's as precious as the tiny collages that she constructs from postage stamps. She gains sympathy because of her lost daughter, but she doesn't redeem herself to the reader until the conclusion, when she performs an act of selflessness.

When her 3 year old daughter dies, Anne Davis returns to the house on a New England island where she grew up. Her marrige has crumbled under the weight of the tragedy. She needs shelter, security, family and love. One snowy night she wakes to find the old house on fire. She escapes but runs back into the fire for something very precious to her. Fireman Thomas Devlin follows her into the burning, smoke filled hallway and when she is overcome by smoke, he saves her life. They are survivors and are drawn to each other because of the pain and loss in their past.

This book's message is indeed one of hope, trust and love. Luanne Rice lets you know that amidst the chaos of tragedy, love can find roots, grow sprouts, and blossom gloriously again - one just has to trust and let love in.

Typical Rice book romance

You can really feel for the characters in Luanne Rice's books, this is one of her better ones that I have read.

This book is typical Luanne Rice. Good beach read. I did cry at the end. Very good.