COME TO ME FREELY
Beth Kery
Ellora's Cave
ISBN: 9781419916311
July 2008
Ultimate Romance

Leigh is a young woman who works with individuals with spinal chord injuries in Chicago. When she married Jeff, her high school sweetheart, right out ofcollege, she never expected that his life would end early due to physical complications related to the spinal chord injury suffered during adolescence. Now she is home again to bury her father-in-law.

As part of this she is forced to come into contact with Jeff's older, devastatingly handsome brother, Tre. This opens a maelstrom of past memories and passions that Leigh buried during her short marriage to Jeff. Tre, while gone from the ranch for several years, had returned when his father became ill and is now the owner of the successful operation. Tre, whose complicated feelings for Leigh have never been resolved, is ambivalent about her return for his father's funeral. Handsome, rugged, and hard working, he has never gotten over the first love of his life and the betrayal he felt when she went ahead with her marriage to his handicapped brother, in spite of their obviously volatile and passionate relationship.

This well-written, well-plotted book is told with a combination of past and current points of view and gives a solid portrait of Leigh and Tre, the reasons behind her marriage to Jeff, and the ways they must now confront this. While both are free to engage in a relationship, they have to resolve the emotional issues from the past that are still operative in the present.

This is a hot, hot book with lots of soul, depth, and strong relationship angst mixed into the excellent intimacy. My one question involves the vagueness of Leigh's profession. A small sticking point for sure, but I was never clear why this woman could be called Dr. as a "physiatrist", (whatever this profession is?). She was too young to have completed medical school. Also, the multiple spelling and typographical errors throughout the text were annoying. Otherwise this is an above average ultimate romance novel with a lot of flair and passion.

Reviewed by Jeri Neal
Rating: 4