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Title: Promise Me a Rainbow

Author: Cheryl Reavis

Narrator: Beth A. McIntosh

Format: Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-07-17

Publisher: BelleBooks, Inc.

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 2 votes

Genres: Romance, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Two lonely people, scarred by betrayal and tragedy, believe that love is lost to them forever....

Deserted by her husband because she couldn't have children, Catherine Holben has thrown herself into her job counseling pregnant teens. Catherine is still recovering from the pain of her divorce, but her life is changed forever when she makes a purchase in a quaint curio shop. She meets handsome, hardworking Joe D'Amaro, a widower and father of three, and his daughter, Fritz. But Joe needs help with Fritz, a seven-year-old dynamo. She's a precocious but headstrong little girl who's impossible to resist., and he is too proud to admit it.

Joe and Catherine are cautious about making a commitment to each other. They both know the joy and heartache of falling in love, but are they willing to risk being together despite their misgivings? Neither can ignore the love that quickly blossoms between them. Maybe they can have a wonderful life together...if only Joe's still-grieving older daughter, Della, will accept a new woman in her father's life.

True love versus reality. Can Catherine handle his ready-made family? Or is there more in store for her than she thinks?

A four-time Rita winner and a three-time Rita finalist, Cheryl Reavis is the author of acclaimed romance novels including A Crime of the Heart, which was condensed in Good Housekeeping magazine.

Members Reviews:

A pair of lonely people find each other

This wasn't a bad book by any means but it felt very heavy. For a romance it seemed curiously lacking in real joy until the very end.

The tone of the book is set somewhat by Catherine. She lives a half-life, sad about her inability to have children and abandoned by her husband because of it.

And then there is Joe and his youngest daughter Fitz. Joe's wife was killed in a car accident and his youngest daughter, seven-year-old Fitz is having emotional issues because of it.

Joe, Fitz and Catherine's lives intersect over a mother/child figurine that Catherine purchases on impulse. The figurine was actually owned by Joe but he sold it because he was short on cash. But Fitz was very attached to the figurine and wants it back.

I get the feeling that I was supposed to be happy that this lonely woman and this damaged man and child found each other. But I just found them to be somewhat enervating. They didn't lift me at all, on the contrary I found them somewhat wearing. Joe and Catherine, after a few head-butting moments, figure out that they really like each other and then they become lovers. The problem with the story is that there was no real conflict for them.

So we are left with filler and secondary characters that shift focus from the decidedly subdued romance. First there is Catherine's job. She works as a counselor? Den Mother? Life Coach? To a group of pre-teen pregnant girls who are given a sort of area-51 zone in their school where only Catherine and one other teacher work with them. These girls are young, yet hardened by life and their circumstances. Oh, btw, the other teacher has Cancer and her husband left her because of it (see....heavy).

Second is Joe's family. He has a predatory sister-in-law. A Clueless brother. And his oldest teenaged daughter, Delia, who acts as the primary obstacle in keeping Joe and Catherine apart. Normally I would find Delia's actions compelling, because children objecting to a new boyfriend/girlfriend can act as a definite obstacle.