Sandy M’s review of Deeper by Megan Hart
Paranormal Romance released by Harlequin Spice 1 Jul 09

I received this book in e-format to review, and because I like reading Megan Hart, I didn’t bother getting online to read a blurb or except about it. Therefore, I knew nothing about it when I started reading. Thus, I didn’t know there would be several surprises ahead for me. Guess I should have known, but either way, it’s always a terrific ride with one of Ms. Hart’s books.

What I liked best about this book is how it alternates chapters between the time when Bess and Nick are young adults, twenty and twenty-one years of age, and then twenty years later when Bess is going through a separation and divorce from her husband. We get most of the mystery behind Nick’s disappearance from Bess’ life in the “Then” chapters and the re-acquaintance of the characters and answers to certain questions in the “Now” chapters.

Bess has inherited the beach house where she spent summers as a teenager and young adult. That’s where she first met Nick all those years ago, the bad boy in town, at a local party. Her friends warn her to stay away from him, he’ll be no good for her. But once she is introduced to him, there’s no way on earth she can stay away from him. She thinks of him, dreams of him constantly. There’s the usual antics that young people pull on each other and the angst that goes along with it, but as soon as Bess is tired of her supposed boyfriend’s, Andy, cheating, along with the fact she wants Nick, they forge a sexual relationship over several weeks toward the end of that summer.

Now as sparks of memory come back to her being on their beach again, Nick suddenly appears, claiming it took only his name falling her lips for him to come to her after being in the “gray” for so long. Besides the fact he hasn’t aged a day in twenty years, she realizes that Nick has no heartbeat and other things that tell her he’s not alive, but she doesn’t question any of it because he’s very real and he’s with her now. She refuses to ask questions of him about what happened when he failed to come to her as he promised back then; she doesn’t want to know because it won’t change anything now.

They enjoy getting to know one another again, mostly in the bedroom — it was always very electric and hot between them and it still is. Coming up with a story for Nick’s reappearance, they head into town for the day, only to hit a brick wall when Nick becomes violently and painfully ill the further they get away from the house and the beach surrounding it. To be with Bess, he’s restricted to that small piece of real estate and no further. But because everything is so new between them again, they love each other, they believe everything will be all right and work out as things should.

In between all this, Bess has also been reacquainted with another friend from her summers at the beach. Eddie was a good friend, though he wanted to be more in those days when they worked together. He now owns the soda shop in town where they spent a lot of time before. Eddie is still interested in Bess, but once again she has to keep the relationship friendly all due to Nick. Also, her sons eventually come to visit and things don’t go well at all when they realize what the relationship is between their mother and this very young man.

This is a terrific story, and Ms. Hart does a great job in linking everything together between the two time periods to lead you to a resolution and get your questions answered. And that’s my only nitpick I have with this book. I really didn’t care for that resolution. As I read, I kept thinking to myself, “I wonder how she’s going to have him truly come back to Bess?” I looked forward to one of those quirky, different ways that could be done, especially coming from an author like Ms. Hart. Didn’t get that at all. In fact, I kind of felt cheated the way it all did end. Anything else I say here will be giving too much away, so that’s the end of that.

At least the story up to that point in time is an enjoyable one. I’m not sure, however, if that makes up for the less-than-stellar ending.

Grade: B-

Summary:
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Some lovers never leave you…
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Twenty years ago she had her whole life spread out before her like a mesmerizing map. She was Bess Walsh, a fresh-scrubbed, middle-class student ready to conquer the design world. And she was taken. Absolutely and completely.
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But not by Andy, her well-groomed, intellectual boyfriend who hinted more than once about a ring. No. During that hot summer as a waitress and living on the beach, she met Nick, a dark haired, local bad boy. He was, to put it mildly, not someone she could take home to Daddy.
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Instead, Nick became her dirty little secret; a fervent sexual accomplice who knew how to ignite an all-consuming obsession she had no idea she carried deep within her.
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Bess had always wondered what happened to Nick after that summer, after their promise to meet again. And now, back at the beach house and taking a break from responsibility, from marriage, from life, she discovers his heartbreaking fate–and why he never came back for her. Suddenly Nick’s name is on her lips…his hands on her thighs…dark hair and eyes called back from the swirling gray of purgatory’s depths.
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Dead, alive, or something in-between, they can’t stop their hunger.
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She wouldn’t dare.
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Read an excerpt.