Blue
This is another tearjerker but it's sweet, too. Emotions came too fast, there was insta-love and abrupt change in how a character felt about something major, but the love was adorable. I didn't like the beginning; it was too slow and kind of dull. But I stuck with it and by the second chapter the plot started moving along and we began to meet the characters.
Oh, yes, characters. There were so many that I took notes because I wasn't sure if I would need to remember all these people. It turned out that most of the important people were obvious early on but there were a couple that came into play that I had to refer back to see if they had been introduced near the beginning. I think some of it was unnecessarily complicated. Yet the complexity is part of what made the book. Seemingly unrelated things or confusing elements twined around each other to link up at the end.
The police procedural part was pretty good. I was completely surprised by the ending, did not see that one coming at all. My major complaint is that all of the "someone I loved is near death/injured, let me show my love" was mostly in the beginning and middle and the final showdown was completely lame. It started fine and just fizzled.
I'm not sure why the title is Blue or what the blurb is alluding too. The color blue was mentioned a couple of times but not in any important way. Sadness wasn't referred to as being blue at all. And blue wouldn't begin to describe the level of sadness. Maybe it refers to the fact that there isn't any sex in the book. :)
This was published in 2011 but it was obviously written in 2003 or 04. I wish that some of the things had been adjusted for this later publishing date. And a couple of dates didn't match up, either. Thatcher says Adam died ten years ago but he was diagnosed HIV positive in the 80's. He died before the new drugs were found that control it. So he would have died fairly quickly. But we know that Ruth's brother was born in 1898 and she is 103 and two years younger than he was. So this is 2004. Ten years before 2004 is 1994 when the drugs were already on the market and doing well.
But I would definitely read something else by this author.
4 stars: 3 stars for the beginning and end, 5 stars for the middle.