It’s been less than a year since Lew, Davina Klein-Roberts’ husband, died after a long battle with cancer. Lew was Davina’s love and soulmate. She still wears her wedding rings and the dragonfly necklace he gave her as an anniversary present. She’s concentrated on growing her business, Golden Oil Co., which sells skin care products. To increase GOC’s customer base, she’s about to sign a deal with Deke Bishop, an NBA superstar who has professed a liking for Davina’s creams and lotions. Obviously, nabbing such a high profile endorser would be terrific for her company. But Davina has no idea that Deke is about to do more than impact her company. He’s about to shake up her personal life, too.
While Deke has a reputation for dating beautiful women like the self-absorbed model Giselle, those relationships are transactional and never last. But the second he meets Davina, he knows that she’s different and is determined to get to know her. He’s initially deterred by her rings, but when he finds out she’s a widow, he doubles his efforts to do whatever he can to be in the same room with her. One of his sisters, who has met Davina, sees the pain in the widow’s eyes and warns her brother to keep his distance, telling him the time isn’t right for him to approach her for more than business. But for Deke, the attraction is too hard to resist and he makes the most of every time he sees her.
Davina sees herself as broken and damaged goods. Lew’s death triggered what she went through when she lost her beloved father when she was just a girl. Her mother processed her grief by dating numerous men, often leaving Davina to raise her sister and younger brother who is on the spectrum. When she begins to process her grief she realizes she has other traumas from her past to deal with.
Shanora Williams (Photo Credit: Ericka Leigh Photography)
Deke, too, is still grieving. When he was 13, his 17 year-old brother, Damon, died. Both boys had been emotionally and physically abused by their father who, after losing his job, became a raging alcoholic. Deke’s anger for his father is so strong that he refuses to be called by his given name, Declan, triggering the times his parent yelled at him. Deke does admit that, before he began to drink, his father taught both him and Damon to play basketball and he has made the most of those lessons becoming the NBA’s star player. But he can’t forget the role his father played in Damon’s death.
Losing someone we love, dealing with grief, is never easy. While the author includes a trigger warning in the front of the book, anyone suffering from loss will not only be comforted by Davina and Deke’s story, but also may find the inspiration to move ahead. As the couple’s stories unfold, it’s clear that the deaths of Lew, in Davina’s case, and Damon, in Deke’s, don’t exist in a vacuum. They had other issues from their past that were never dealt with and the sadness over those deaths blotted out everything else. With time and distance, they were able to realize they had much more they needed to face. In effect, Davina and Deke became a grief group of two, helping each other place events from the past in perspective.
But this novel is more than a treatise about grief; it’s a love story, and one in the hands of bestselling romance writer Williams that her fan base, along with those discovering her for the first time, will enjoy.
Beautiful Broken Love
Shanora Williams
Top photo: Bigstock
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