Romance is My Day Job: A Memoir of Finding Love at Last

Patience Bloom, a successful editor for Harlequin Books, chronicles her search for love in Romance Is My Day Job. The memoir commences in 1984 at a high school dance, when bookish wallflower, Patience, a sophomore, is ditched by Ken, her good-looking, 'Harlequin-hero'-like date. Sam, a popular, fun-loving senior rescued Patience, the two of them taking to the dance floor and even posing as a couple for the event photographer. 

The picture is all that remained from the thrill of that night. For the next 25 years, Patience endured a series of bad relationships as she moved around the U.S., lived in Paris and finally landed in New York at Harlequin. By the time she turned 40, Patience—professionally successful, but still single—concluded, "My life is nothing like these books, not even a little bit."

References to popular romance books and movies infuse Bloom's honest, witty narrative as she offers a clever, humorous take on hero archetypes and compares lessons learned, often the hard way, from her own romantic entanglements. When Sam contacts Patience via Facebook shortly after her 41st birthday, the two, living on different continents, court each other via Skype for four months. They share an intimacy that affirms Patience's faith in love, encouraging her to reflect upon her life and open her heart. But is Sam too good to be true? Once they finally meet again, face to face, will they be compatible? Suspense deepens as Bloom's beautifully rendered love story illustrates how real life can often be as engrossing as romance novels.

Romance is My Day Job: A Memoir of Finding Love at Last by Patience Bloom

Dutton Adult,  $26.95 hardcover, 9780525954385, 320 pp

Publication Date: February 6, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (2/14/14), click HERE

Before We Met

Middle-aged Brits, Hannah and Mark Reilly have enjoyed an idyllic marriage for eight months when Hannah eagerly drives to Heathrow Airport to pick up her husband, who was away on a business trip in New York City. But when Mark doesn't return on his scheduled flight, and Hannah cannot track him down by phone, she begins to worry. Days later Mark re-surfaces, claiming plausible, yet rather questionable excuses, which plant a seed of suspicion in Hannah, who grew up with a cheating father and a chronically skeptical mother. Hannah tries to convince herself that she has no real reason not to trust Mark, but her doubts cannot be diverted when she learns that Mark's whereabouts in New York City cannot be confirmed and coworkers in Mark's office—a lucrative software company, which he founded—cannot corroborate his story, either. Hannah stitches together other unexpected revelations including Mark's contact with a mysterious woman doctor, funds withdrawn from Hannah's bank account and the return of Mark's long lost brother. At every turn, Mark seems to have answers to explain everything, but can Hannah believe them?

Doubts, secrets and lies drive the engrossing suspense of the narrative. Author Lucie Whitehouse (The Bed I Made) effectively employs flashbacks in examining the before and after of Hannah and Mark—their single lives, their working lives, the influences of their dysfunctional families and the life they created together. This well-written and well-plotted psychological thriller peels back layers of information, deepening implications that will keep readers guessing through chilling twists and turns.

Before We Met by Lucie Whitehouse

Bloombury USA,  $25.00 hardcover, 9781620402757, 288 pp

Publication Date: January 21, 2014

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (1/28/14), click HERE