![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI read Singh’s last book, Craving Beauty, and liked it for the most part, so I picked up a copy of this book, a March Silhouette Desire at Target several weeks ago. I don’t read many SD’s, although I couldn’t say why particularly. I think I picked up Singh’s last book because it was set, at least in part, in a Middle Eastern culture, and part of the story was the culture gap between the heroine and hero. Secrets was about a gap, this time in communication between a couple that have been married for five years and are now separated.
As usual, the back blurb was over the top melodramatic and not totally accurate. The front cover is a little odd. Caleb looks like a Father Knows Best kind of guy in a very 50s kind of way. Vicki is wearing a fairly skimpy top in comparison. But I’ve seen way worse covers, and this isn’t so bad in comparison.
The book opens with Vicki’s announcement that she is pregnant. At this point, they have been separated for two months, at Vicki’s request. Caleb seizes on the pregnancy as a reason to move back home (he’s been staying in a hotel) and steam rolls over Vicki. Imagine his surprise when she puts all of his stuff in the guest room. This is an example of some of Vicki’s frustration: Caleb rolls right over her, doing what he thinks is best without listening to her. She feels like a useless decoration, not really needed in his life at all, coming in a distant second to his business, the law practice he built from scratch.
Caleb, on the other hand, loves Vicki passionately, although he has never said the words, and felt like he was taking care of her as he was supposed to; he didn’t understand why she asked for a divorce. He himself was unhappy in their marriage, because he wanted more passion, but was trying to content himself with it as it was.
The major problem in the relationship is the fact that Caleb and Vicki don’t communicate. They are both operating on assumptions and expectations that they have never revealed to each other. Vicki, raised by a strict grandmother to behave properly, loves Caleb but doesn’t know how to show her passion without being what her grandmother called “slutty”. Her fears are compounded by the fact that both of her parents cheated regularly and abandoned her as a child – she worries that if she is “slutty”, Caleb will abandon her too. Caleb, the straight-laced child of artists, is ashamed of the fact that he is illegitimate – the result of a three-way that his swinging parents participated in. He’s also sexually frustrated – as he asks at one point, why did Vicki marry him if she can’t stand him touching her?
While it is easy to say that communication is their problem, Singh does a good job of making it a problem not resolved by a single conversation, like so many conflicts are in Romancelandia. Their communications issues are a result of their upbringings, their early lives, and their relationships with their families, rather than a single misinterpreted sentence or conversation.
I liked that there is no trumped up suspense to create tension between the two. The entire plot could be summed up as a Big Misunderstanding, I suppose, but the misunderstanding took place in the past and is being worked through during the book. Caleb and Vicki eventually learn to talk to each other and trust each other with their secrets and their hurts.
My only quibbles: the setting and their ages. Wellington and the Great Barrier are mentioned, so the setting could be New Zealand or Australia. I’m thinking it is set in New Zealand because of a question Vicki asked her mother about Auckland. Nothing is explicitly stated to set the book and there is absolutely no sense of place. The characters' vocabulary and speech seemed generically American, which doesn’t really match either setting. The book could have been set absolutely anywhere, though, because place isn’t a huge part of the story. Still, it would have been nice to know where exactly the book was set. My quibble with their ages is a general thing of my own – Caleb and Vicki married when she was 19 and he was 29. A ten year age gap when one is 19 is huge in terms of life experience, etc., and reading about it just makes me uncomfortable, even if the book itself is taking place five years later. I can’t imagine a 19 year old and a 29 year old having an equal relationship; the age difference strikes me as creating an automatic power inequity in the relationship. [FWIW, I don’t think ten years is a particularly large gap when people are older.]
Still, I liked Secrets fairly well: B.
Every marriage has its secrets
They were reconciling. That was all Caleb Callaghan could focus on when his estranged wife, Vicki, shared the news of her pregnancy. He was determined that this time their marriage would succeed, no matter what it took.
But was Vicki’s price too high? She wanted more than his love and support…she demanded honesty between them, starting with his secrets. But there was something in Caleb’s past the could not – would not – share. For the truth would only destroy them.
As usual, the back blurb was over the top melodramatic and not totally accurate. The front cover is a little odd. Caleb looks like a Father Knows Best kind of guy in a very 50s kind of way. Vicki is wearing a fairly skimpy top in comparison. But I’ve seen way worse covers, and this isn’t so bad in comparison.
The book opens with Vicki’s announcement that she is pregnant. At this point, they have been separated for two months, at Vicki’s request. Caleb seizes on the pregnancy as a reason to move back home (he’s been staying in a hotel) and steam rolls over Vicki. Imagine his surprise when she puts all of his stuff in the guest room. This is an example of some of Vicki’s frustration: Caleb rolls right over her, doing what he thinks is best without listening to her. She feels like a useless decoration, not really needed in his life at all, coming in a distant second to his business, the law practice he built from scratch.
Caleb, on the other hand, loves Vicki passionately, although he has never said the words, and felt like he was taking care of her as he was supposed to; he didn’t understand why she asked for a divorce. He himself was unhappy in their marriage, because he wanted more passion, but was trying to content himself with it as it was.
The major problem in the relationship is the fact that Caleb and Vicki don’t communicate. They are both operating on assumptions and expectations that they have never revealed to each other. Vicki, raised by a strict grandmother to behave properly, loves Caleb but doesn’t know how to show her passion without being what her grandmother called “slutty”. Her fears are compounded by the fact that both of her parents cheated regularly and abandoned her as a child – she worries that if she is “slutty”, Caleb will abandon her too. Caleb, the straight-laced child of artists, is ashamed of the fact that he is illegitimate – the result of a three-way that his swinging parents participated in. He’s also sexually frustrated – as he asks at one point, why did Vicki marry him if she can’t stand him touching her?
While it is easy to say that communication is their problem, Singh does a good job of making it a problem not resolved by a single conversation, like so many conflicts are in Romancelandia. Their communications issues are a result of their upbringings, their early lives, and their relationships with their families, rather than a single misinterpreted sentence or conversation.
I liked that there is no trumped up suspense to create tension between the two. The entire plot could be summed up as a Big Misunderstanding, I suppose, but the misunderstanding took place in the past and is being worked through during the book. Caleb and Vicki eventually learn to talk to each other and trust each other with their secrets and their hurts.
My only quibbles: the setting and their ages. Wellington and the Great Barrier are mentioned, so the setting could be New Zealand or Australia. I’m thinking it is set in New Zealand because of a question Vicki asked her mother about Auckland. Nothing is explicitly stated to set the book and there is absolutely no sense of place. The characters' vocabulary and speech seemed generically American, which doesn’t really match either setting. The book could have been set absolutely anywhere, though, because place isn’t a huge part of the story. Still, it would have been nice to know where exactly the book was set. My quibble with their ages is a general thing of my own – Caleb and Vicki married when she was 19 and he was 29. A ten year age gap when one is 19 is huge in terms of life experience, etc., and reading about it just makes me uncomfortable, even if the book itself is taking place five years later. I can’t imagine a 19 year old and a 29 year old having an equal relationship; the age difference strikes me as creating an automatic power inequity in the relationship. [FWIW, I don’t think ten years is a particularly large gap when people are older.]
Still, I liked Secrets fairly well: B.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
nice review!
Date: 2006-04-16 11:16 pm (UTC)Thanks!
Date: 2006-04-17 12:00 am (UTC)I'd be happy to mail my copy to you if you like. I liked it, but it isn't a keeper for me.
Re: Thanks!
Date: 2006-04-17 12:19 am (UTC)I my addy is in the file thingy I think. I will check. hee when I was 19 my mom was 36 and my lil sis 1. And yeah I was always taken for older since about 16 and at 17 starting working where everyone assumed I was older. Sort of rolled into me getting away with shit I shouldn't have been able to.
ah well, I had fun ;). It wasn't until I got really stupid and married at 21 (he was 26) that everything went downhill. Teach me to date men my own age. LOL of course now I am 30. So soon I will want to date 19 *g*.