After the funeral of a dear friend, Sloane McBride knew
it was time to go back home and try to find out what had
happened to her mother twenty three years before. Clara
McBride had vanished one night, after a fight with her
husband Ed, who had never fully addressed the issue. Only
Sloane, then five, had witnessed parts of the argument
between her parents while her brother Randy was at a
friend's for the night. If Paige, Sloane's best friend
from high school, welcomes her with open arms, the same
cannot be said for Sloane's former boyfriend Micah, or
Sloane's brother and father. Is Sloane the only who cares
about what happened to her mother?
BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS is a romantic suspense where the
romance and the mystery form a very intricate plot and
all threads are essential to the fabric of the story.
Brenda Novak establishes the set-up while we familiarize
ourselves with the characters and fragments of the story
gradually come to light. Nothing ever jumps at you, but
you know it's only a matter of time before a spark will
ignite the powder keg. While the pace is not quick, it is
nice and steady, which is what this type of story needs
as there are several main characters of almost equal
importance and every one needs to be explored.
Ms. Novak excels at characterization, and often during
the course of the book, it's hard to predict how the
protagonists will behave, and who is on whose side. Even
though Sloane and Micah form the romantic couple -- and
the romance is terrific and entirely convincing -- it's
Paige who really stood out for me. She is as
multidimensional as any living person; she made me feel
every emotion -- good and bad -- and I'm really not sure if
it was intended that way: as far as I'm concerned, she is
the star of BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS. I did not
particularly like Paige "the fictional resident of
Millcreek", but I loved the literary creation that is
Paige; I appreciated beyond words the complexity of the
character and how she fascinated me from her introduction
until the very end. I wasn't entirely thrilled with how
BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS concluded. Without giving away
spoilers, I can't say the ending was rushed, but it felt
somewhat compressed, and until the very last pages, I was
afraid some issues would be left dangling. In spite of
this, BEFORE WE WERE STRANGERS is another Brenda Novak
novel that deserves to be read for anyone who enjoys a
solid suspense with a little romance.
Something happened to her mother that night.
Something no one wants to talk about. But she’s determined
to uncover her family’s dark secrets, even if they bury
her.
Five-year-old Sloane McBride couldn’t
sleep that night. Her parents were arguing again, their
harsh words heating the cool autumn air. And then there was
that other sound—the ominous thump before all went
quiet.
In the morning, her mother was
gone.
The official story was that she left. Her
loving, devoted mother! That hadn’t sat any better at the
time than it did when Sloane moved out at eighteen, anxious
to leave her small Texas hometown in search of anywhere
else. But not even a fresh start working as a model in New
York could keep the nightmares at bay. Or her fears that the
domineering father she grew up with wasn’t just difficult—he
was deadly.
Now another traumatic loss forces Sloane
to realize she owes it to her mother to find out the truth,
even if it means returning to a small town full of secrets
and lies, a jilted ex-boyfriend and a father and brother
who’d rather see her silenced. But as Sloane starts digging
into the past, the question isn’t whether she can uncover
what really happened that night…it’s what will remain of her
family if she does?
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