Gilly Soloman has been reduced to a mothering machine, taking care of everyone and everything except herself. But the machine has broken down. Burnt out by the endless days of crying children and menial tasks, and exhausted from always putting herself last, Gilly doesn't immediately consider the consequences when she's carjacked. With a knife to her throat, her first thought is that she'll finally get some rest. Someone can save her for a change.But salvation isn't so forthcoming. Stranded in a remote, snowbound cabin with this stranger, hours turn to days, days into weeks. As time forges a fragile bond between them, she learns her captor is not the lunatic she first believed, but a human being whose wasted life has been shaped by secrets and tragedy. Yet even as their connection begins to foster trust, Gilly knows she must never forget he's still a man teetering on the edge. One who just might take her with him.
I sometimes find myself visiting Megan Hart's Blog, Read In Bed, for updates on what she's working on and to find out what she thought about a recent episode of 'Supernatural'. So a couple of weeks ago I stopped by and she was giving away copies of her upcoming Mira publication-Precious and Fragile Things- all you had to do was send her an e-mail. I was a lucky winner and got my signed copy in the mail not to long ago.
I have read a lot of what Hart has written in the past five years or so and I have really enjoyed it. Most of it had been erotic fiction or romance. Her books are hot, but they aren't tacky, they are beautifully written and the character development is phenomenal.
Precious and Fragile Things is the first book by Hart to be published that is not erotic and not romance. Megan herself has said "It’s sort of thrillerishy with a side of women’s fiction in a literary fiction crust and a bit of mainstream contemporary fiction on top".
I was a little nervous about reading this at the beginning , because, well when you love something or you love something that someone does, you don't want them to change it. It goes with the whole 'if it ain't broke why fix it' kind of philosophy. A little unreasonable I'll admit. So the idea of a book that wasn't romance but mainstream fiction was just wrong to me. None the less I knew that I would read the book and that I wanted to read it.
The books as a whole is just shy of 400 pages and every page is pretty intense. Everything that I loved about Hart's writing was in this book (which makes sense) and the characters were brilliant.
The protagonist, Gilly is a woman who has made a decision to be a mother and although she loves her children dearly she is struggling with the demands and responsibility of being a stay at home mom. So when she gets car jacked and ends up stranded with her kidnapper Todd, she struggles with many different feelings one being guilt. She had the opportunity to run and she chose not to. Gilly wanted to rest. She just never expected to be stranded for so long. Todd, I loved from the very moment he realized there were kids in the car. He was an anxious and fidgety character who was so completely broken, and you knew that from the very beginning, you just didn't know why until later. The exchanges between the two are honest and true to how things might be if something like this were to actually happen. Their conversations are not all full of rainbows and lollipops, they are sometimes harsh and hard to read.
I really enjoyed this book, it was a very heartbreaking story of how, if a situation had been a little bit different, if different decisions had been made. Life could have worked out differently. I think Megan did an amazing j0b with Precious and Fragile Things and I would encourage you all to go out and buy it in January when it come out.
Happy Reading Everyone!
