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Book CoverStevie‘s review of The Sweetest Thing (River Bend Book 2) by Lilian Darcy
Contemporary Romance published by The Tule Publishing Group LLC 07 Jan 14

Following on from Late Last Night, which I reviewed recently, we return to the small town of Marietta, Montana, to visit more of the residents who were involved in the tragic events following prom night 1996. Tully should have gone to the prom with Ren on that fateful night, but she stood him up, leaving town mere hours before he arrived to ride with her in one of the borrowed classic (not vintage, whatever the author seems to think) cars that we read all about in the previous book. Eighteen years later, Ren is a lawyer, still living in Marietta and in an unhappy marriage to the girl he was with when tragedy struck after the prom, while Tully is living over on the West Coast, a successful accountant in the movie industry. Then Ren gains a new client – a relative of Tully’s – with an unusual request, and Tully returns to town to care for said relative, who is terminally ill. Naturally Ren and Tully run into each other almost immediately over purchases of fancy chocolates: his a Valentine’s Day gift for his wife, hers a conciliatory gesture towards Sugar – nicknamed for her sweet tooth – the dying woman whom everyone in town has always assumed to be Tully’s sister. The attraction is still there after all those years, but neither is going to act on it under the circumstances. But then Ren’s parents step in…

Ren’s parents are great. His father has bought a farm to keep himself busy following retirement, and his mother is a French-born artist. The pair of them have watched Ren grow ever more depressed by his marriage, in stark contrast to the relationship they have, and the one Ren’s brother had prior to being suddenly widowed, and on Valentine’s Day, they can’t keep quiet any longer. Ren’s been inching towards divorce for a long time, but never quite faced up to saying so, partly because of not wanting to offend his Catholic mother. Now he has her approval, he can broach the subject with his wife, who is equally unhappy, but even less likely to take the first step. Ren and Ruth are just wrong for each other, but once apart, they both flourish – and by the end of the book, Ruth is starting to become likable after appearing to be overly bitchy early on.

Meanwhile, Ren is searching for the son Sugar gave up for adoption nearly three decades earlier, but has been forced to promise not to tell anyone, not even Tully, whom he keeps seeing everywhere. And Tully has her own secret about Sugar too. The night of the prom, Tully found out that Sugar, a long-time addict, was her real mother, who had been pregnant at the age of thirteen – and she’d run away rather than face her classmates once she knew the truth. Time is short for all of them: Tully has leave of absence from work, but Sugar only has a few months to live, and then Tully will have to go back to the West Coast in spite of her burgeoning relationship with Ren.

The relationship has happened too soon after his divorce for her to push him into making a commitment, and she doesn’t want to stick around unless they have a real chance of a future together. At times I really wanted one of them to actually tell the other how they felt, but at least with this pair they both had a track record of being infuriatingly bad at telling people their thoughts. Eventually one of their family members has to step in again to resolve the issue, and the solution isn’t quite the one I’d been expecting – no bad thing.

Overall, I like this book better than the first, although I am once again disappointed that while both of the mysteries running through the series are mentioned, one is wrapped up in a single sentence and the other is left hanging. I’d like to visit the town for another story – it has many more fascinating residents for us to watch pairing up – but I really hope we get proper answers soon.

Stevies CatGrade: C

Summary:

Tully Morgan hasn’t been back to Marietta for more than a few brief visits since the night of the 1996 senior prom eighteen years ago, when the chance exposure of a long-held family secret sent her running to her uncle in California in shock. She stood up her date Ren Fletcher that night, and she hasn’t seen him since.

Now she’s here for an extended stay, to help take care of her seriously ill mother. It’s an edgy reconciliation, the first time that Tully, Patty and Sugar Morgan have been together since that long ago prom night. Tully has had so much anger toward Sugar… can she ever forgive her?

And Sugar still has one more secret that needs to be dealt with, one that needs Ren Fletcher’s help. Has he forgiven Tully for leaving him in the lurch on prom night? And is there any chance that he and Tully can rekindle what they might once have had, when he’s still tied to someone else?

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