NEW RELEASE
Always Something There to Remind Me - Beth Harbison (2011)
Erin and Nate were high school sweethearts; each other's first loves, sharing all of their hopes and dreams for the future. Until Erin does something Nate can't forgive and they are done. Two decades later, Erin receives a marriage proposal from Rick, a wonderful man who loves her and her daughter, Camille. To Erin's surprise, the first thing that pops into her head after Rick proposes is Nate, whom she hasn't thought about in years. All of her old feelings for him, and the circumstances of their relationship, come flooding back as if it happened only yesterday. While Rick waits for an answer to his proposal, Erin struggles to reconcile her feelings for Nate when he suddenly reappears in her life, with some very big news. While I liked the general premise of the story, and questioning your feelings for your first love are indeed plausible if you were to meet again after 20 years, I found the teenage Erin was bordering on obsession in her love for Nate, which made it hard to believe he hadn't been on her radar since they broke up. In addition, while seeing him again transports her back to her teenage years, it also causes her to react with the same teenage behaviour, rather than the behaviour of a mature adult, which I didn't particularly care for. I did prefer the end of the book to the beginning, which was filled with more humour and the anticipation of what the outcome of Erin's story would be. (LEK)
Always Something There to Remind Me, by Beth Harbison, focuses on the power of first love. The summary says: "Two decades ago, Erin Edwards was sure she'd already found the love of her life: Nate Lawson. Her first love. The one with whom she shared everything - dreams of the future, of children, plans for forever. The one she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. Until one terrible night when Erin made a mistake Nate could not forgive and left her to mourn the relationship she could never forget or get over. Today, Erin is contentedly involved with a phenomenal guy, maneuvering a successful and exciting career, and raising a great daughter all on her own. So why would the name Nate Lawson be the first thing to enter her mind when her boyfriend asks her to marry him? In the wake of the proposal, Erin finds herself coming unraveled over the past, and the love she never forgot. The more she tries to ignore it and move on, the more it haunts her." You can read the first chapter at Harbison's blog.