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Road To Tomorrow (2012)

by Mary Metcalfe(Favorite Author)

3.48 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0987930001 (ISBN13: 9780987930002)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Laskin Publishing

series

Look to the Future

review 1: Fiction isn't supposed to be true, but it is supposed to be believable. I found it difficult to believe that a woman who had been abused for five years would wait until the last day before her husband returned from deployment to escape. He would have been gone at least six months, probably a year, and she could have left any time and started a new life. Instead she waited until the day before his return and left her children with her brother, the best friend of the abuser. The brother had no legal right to keep the kids, so the father could easily have taken them away. Then Andrea has an accident in an idyllic community where everyone comes to her aid. She meets a man who had been totally withdrawn since the death of his mother, and they are sharing their life stories and ... morea bed in a matter of days. It is difficult to imagine that an abused woman would trust a man so deeply after only a few days or that a man who wouldn't communicate would change in those same few days. Personally, I don't like the idea of the couple developing a sexual relationship so quickly while Andrea is still married, even though she is going to get a divorce. And the author had the abusive husband with a traumatic brain injury walk into a gun store and buy a fully automatic M-16. I happen to know that is not possible--my husband bought an M-16 nearly 40 years ago, and applying for and receiving a license for an automatic weapon took about a year back then and included intense scrutiny by several law enforcement agencies. It's even more difficult now--there's no way a soldier just out of several years of rehab for traumatic brain injury (TBI) could walk in off the street and buy an automatic weapon. Most gun shops can't even sell machine guns--that requires a special license beyond the license to sell other guns. Since this aspect of the story was obviously not researched, it makes me wonder about the validity of the information about TBI. I know PTSD and TBI are major problems of soldiers returning from deployment, and I admire the author's desire to bring the problem to the attention of the public. However, by using a man who had been violent since early childhood as her model of someone with TBI, I'm not sure she gave an accurate picture. I am not knowledgeable about TBI, but I edited a book about PTSD and learned some about TBI in the process. I don't believe soldiers who are injured are necessarily any more violent than anyone else before their injury. And the husband/villain had no redeeming features. Why did she ever marry him in the first place? The story just wasn't real to me--I could not suspend disbelief to enjoy this story.
review 2: Author Mary Metcalfe's writing style is clear and concise. Her words create vivid images, while the dialogue is realistic and relate-able. I also enjoyed the way she weaved subtle yet suggestive romantic relationships without being graphic or offensive. For the most part, the characters were believable, even in their flaws. A few times, the story line seemed a little too convenient or too much of a coincidence but still created multidimensional, likeable characters. Towards the end of the book, Metcalfe did a great job of combining intense suspense with an unexpected twist. As a busy wife and mother myself, it wasn't hard to relate to the internal struggles Andrea Garrett was facing every day. However, Mary Metcalfe also made a great choice highlighting the red flags her character Andrea should have paid more attention to earlier in her relationship with Sean. Although Andrea is not to blame for Sean's vicious behavior, Metcalfe reminded her readers the importance of making good choices and the responsibility we must take for the decisions we make in life. I enjoyed this suspenseful women's fiction, and with less than 200 pages, it was easy to read in just a few short days. This is an author that I will most likely reach for again when I have a few moments available to myself. less

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