TITLE: Hole in Her Heart
Author: Carolyn Russell
ISBN: 1-4137-2403-5
Publisher: Publish America

Women’s Fiction

Release Date: Feb. 2004

Sensual Rating: Sparks, smolders

Rating: 4 1/2 Flames

Like many young women of her time (1955) Julie Mitchell still lives with her parents and is only working while she waits for the current version of Prince Charming to appear. She is convinced love will find her in the person of a wonderful man. When she meets Rick Danbury at a USO Dance at Fort Harrison near her Indiana home, she is instantly smitten. That fateful meeting sets the tone for the rest of her life.

Rick, scion of wealth and privilege, is not a happy young man. He is burdened by guilt for the Oedipus complex that has him pursuing older women and drinks too much. However, he almost worships Julie and puts her on a pedestal, separate from his normal womanizing habits. They never do consummate their relationship. When he gets transferred to New Mexico, distance taxes their bond until it eventually unravels when Rick feels he has to marry one of his conquests who turns up pregnant. Julie is heart broken and quickly weds the youngest executive in the insurance company where she works. Although the marriage is not based on love, it is sound and endures, giving her two children.

Many years later, after her husband is killed by a drunken driver, Julie’s dying mother admits Rick came back once and wanted to see her. Julie decides then to try to find out whatever happened to him. This quest leads her to New Mexico and a circle of friends, who were with him to the end, to revelations that both trouble and elate her, and to the possibility of a new relationship, perhaps built on sounder factors than fairy tale romance mixed with lust.

Hole in Her Heart is a powerful portrayal of human faults and frailty and the amazing power of love to change people’s lives, both for good and for ill. The characters are not always admirable but they are human, believable and sympathetic. Julie grows from a somewhat shallow and frivolous girl to a woman with deep emotions and unexpected strengths. I found myself hoping for the best for her since she had surely paid her dues. This one is well worth the time to read and will stick in your mind for much longer. I expect it will end up on many a reader’s keeper shelf.

Alegria, Reviewer for Word Museum

Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance and Literary Nymphs