SWEET LOVE
Sarah Strohmeyer
Dutton
Romance
ISBN: 9780525950646

Sarah Strohmeyer was inspired to write SWEET LOVE as a way of honoring the memory of her beloved mother, but also to gain closure after she passed away. The book opens with a prologue, written from the viewpoint of Betty Mueller, who feels a need to correct a wrong she thinks she did to her middle-aged daughter many years ago. Betty did not approve of Julie’s budding crush on Michael Slayton, a family friend who was a bit older than Julie's teenage years. In the same breath, Betty also confesses that she loves desserts (and cooking in general) and believes it's what helps make the world go ’round. She admits that her own daughter hates to cook because she was a slave to her kitchen. Julie will have none of that.

Looking at Julie today, Betty sees an unhappy, divorced, middle-aged woman with a teenaged daughter. This, she believes, is all her fault. Through some finagling, she manages to get Julie into a very exclusive cooking class focusing on desserts. What Julie doesn't know is that Michael also has been given this same gift. When the two attend their first session, Julie is shocked to find the love of her life there. It's the beginning of a renewed acquaintance, in which both Michael and Julie are reminded of their joint pasts, the friendship they shared, walking down memory lane and thinking of what had ruined their relationship --- a misunderstanding that occurred between them in their professional lives.

Julie is embarrassed to even see Michael, because her feelings for him --- the crush she had when she was growing up --- was never reciprocated, as he only saw her as his best friend's little sister. And obviously those feelings still remained, because why would she be reacting this way to him after all these years? To make matters worse, Michael doesn't come to class alone. He brings a very attractive woman with him, and Julie is convinced they are involved.

Betty continues her manipulating, hoping to get the two of them together. But as she’s doing this, she's also dealing with her own issues that will bring Julie and Michael even closer together.

SWEET LOVE is written in a very humorous tone, but there are also a lot of touching emotional scenes. I believe this is the best book Sarah Strohmeyer has written thus far. While her earlier novels, which comprised the Bubbles series, were light comedies with one-dimensional characters but still a lot of fun, her stand-alone titles have an added depth to them. SWEET LOVE continues to showcase her humor, but there is a serious side to this book --- with the characters being much more rounded and three-dimensional, changing and growing from their mistakes, and a few heavy themes that definitely bring more to the story.

As always, I was not disappointed by Strohmeyer. Her book especially rings true for me because I too have recently lost my mother.

    --- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton (Ratmammy@lofton.org)

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