The Sweetheart Deal

For our April book club we chose a romance novel by Polly Dugan.  She is a childhood friend of one of our members and we like to support local authors.

A sweetheart deal in the business world is an abnormally favorable contractual arrangement and that definition fits with this story perfectly.  It’s revolves around Leo McGeary, his wife, Audrey, and his best friend, Garrett. 

During an evening of hard drinking, Leo forces Garrett to sign a scrap of paper that states that Garrett will marry Audrey in the event of Leo’s death.  Garrett doesn’t want to sign it, but Leo persists.  Leo is a firefighter and knows the odds of something happening to him are higher than the average person, and with three sons to raise, Leo wants to make sure his family is taken care of.

The inevitable happens and Garrett quits his job at a college in Boston and moves in with Audrey and her sons in Portland to finish the addition that Leo had started in their home.  Garrett and Audrey’s friendship grows and complications set in with Audrey’s sons and with Garrett’s unease about the scrap of paper Leo had him sign, which he brought with him from Boston.

This story line was interesting.  I can’t imagine King Arthur asking Lancelot to sign a document to marry Guinevere if anything happened to him.  They just fell in love without his permission long before he died.

I can honestly say that if anything happened to my husband, I wouldn’t want to date any of his friends. First, they’re all married, but if they weren’t it’s just a weird concept to me.  Most of the ladies at book club felt the same way. But as the author pointed out in this story, once the situation changes, we don’t know what we’d do unless we’re in those circumstances.

This novel doesn’t offer a lot of material for discussion at book clubs, but it was an easy and interesting read.  We talked about Leo’s death and the subsequent chapters and how heartfelt and believable they were.  We especially liked the children’s chapters, they’re quite vivid and left us wanting more of them. We all felt the ending was rushed but overall, it’s a nice romance novel.

Rating: 6.5

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