SHATTERED TREASURE

Two young people fall in love despite an assortment of obstacles.

In this novel’s opening pages, young Addison Morgan is attending the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, and visiting a loud, unruly fraternity party mainly to placate her boyfriend, Philip Thomas. Addison has only one drink, but the punch is spiked, and when the alcohol hits her while she’s driving shortly afterward, she causes a car accident that badly bangs up a young woman named Ami Tant. The mishap is almost equally traumatizing for Addison, since her own beloved sister, Casey, had the previous year lost her life to a drunk driver. Addison forms an unlikely bond with Ami. The two become good friends while Addison is living with her aunt Brenda, working at the Olive Garden, and attending school. At first, Ami’s policeman brother, Logan, is determined to find and prosecute the driver who hurt his sister, but he quickly feels a strong attraction to Addison—one she reciprocates, if awkwardly, in the wake of her breakup with the increasingly unstable Philip. When Philip’s violent desperation forces Addison into an unplanned personal emergency, she falls back on her passionate Christian faith (She “couldn’t imagine a life without those countless lessons of Jesus”). Not knowing what else to do, she initially pushes Logan away. In this intriguing romance, Patterson (Chasing Paradise, 2017) presents an intricate emotional journey in a prose style that’s readably straightforward. While watching Logan play baseball, Addison reflexively compares the two men in her life, observing the cop’s “long, strong body slinging every ball with all his effort, his whole being revealing his strength,” noting it’s “the exact opposite of Philip who threatened and punished when he didn’t get his way.” Unfortunately, the writing sometimes becomes clichéd (“the silence was deafening”; “he had somehow stolen her heart”). While several of Addison’s decisions may have some readers howling in disagreement, the audience will nevertheless be genuinely eager to find out what happens next. In the end, the author delivers a poignant story about the unexpected love a young woman scarred by personal tragedy finds.

An emotionally complex and ultimately moving romance.