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Sarah Anderson, a San Francisco estate and tax attorney, becomes close to her eccentric 98-year-old client, Stanley Perlman. He lives in the attic of an old mansion and has never used the rest of the house. When he leaves Sarah a large bequest in his will, she buys the house and renovates it to its former glory. Sarah is in a four-year-long, weekend-only, relationship with Phil that she finally ends, after many boring pages of insecure, back-and-forth indecision. Of course, there is a new romance with a fairy tale ending.
I was distracted and annoyed by the head-hopping in this novel (point of view shifts, often within the same paragraph). Not one of Steel’s best efforts, in my opinion. The abundance of unnecessary repetition was also aggravating. Steel refers to Sarah’s four-year dead end romance over and over – I began counting the phrase “four years” and after reaching 28 times by Chapter Twelve I stopped counting! I enjoyed the subplot of Sarah’s ancestors being the house’s previous owners. I would have liked learned more about these former residents. The house itself is the most interesting character in this long drawn-out story. I would have enjoyed the novel if Sarah’s romance with Phil had been deleted. It just seemed to slow down the beginning of the story.
Reviewed by Marie DisBrow
for The Road to Romance
May 25, 2007
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