BEHOLDEN

A married couple experiences a rough patch in the public eye.

Pam and Kevin Shaughnessy are college sweethearts–she’s a schoolteacher, he owns a bar–and they relish their season tickets to the Bears, Philadelphia’s beloved hockey team. Their routine married life is comfortable, until Pam donates blood on a whim to break up an afternoon of shopping. She discovers that she is a nearly perfect bone-marrow match for Bears player Brett Warfield. As the city’s hockey fans lament Brett’s leukemia diagnosis, Pam faces extreme pressure to undergo the major surgery, which also puts any baby plans on the back burner. In the meantime, Kevin becomes a mentor to Timmy, one of Pam’s troublesome students. Timmy’s single–and hot–mom Hilary is in awe of Kevin’s ability to turn her son’s life around and is quick to offer support when Pam is busy with Brett. As Pam and Kevin find solace in the arms of others, their friends offer support and share personal struggles in an effort to pull them back together. Binns deftly tackles the issues of trust, pride, temptation, friendship and honesty throughout the story–by the end readers will feel as if they are in the couple’s tight network of friends. The author also sheds light on the situation from different viewpoints so that readers will easily relate to the couple’s dilemma and root for the marriage. Some romance enthusiasts may find a few of the overt descriptions juvenile, but Binns delivers the necessary drama, which culminates in an exciting, unpredictable twist.

A nice way to ease into the romance genre.