Deep in the Heart

Years ago, Kate Wallace ran out on her boyfriend and family to chase her dreams and further her career. Now, disillusioned and betrayed, she questions her values. Was her ambition a bad thing? Are there more important things in life, like love, friends and family? When her sister Abby needs help as she recovers from surgery, Kate finds herself suddenly the "go to" girl and arrives back in her hometown to face her greatest challenge: The town and people she abandoned, most importantly her sister, her niece Brooke and her former boyfriend Rob are suddenly right there in front of her. And she has to deal with them as the person she is today. In this book, Jane Myers Perrine does an excellent job of showing Kate's growth and change and acceptance of the person she is becoming. Her reaching out in faith is a theme in this book. Of all her relationships, one of the most poignant for me is Kate's relationship with her niece, her sister's young daughter Brooke. Brooke's need for love and Kate's becoming her aunt in the truest sense is so brilliantly shown, as is Kate's realization that her sister has problems to deal with that may not stem solely from Kate's abandonment of her and their family. And since her ex Rob is now a grieving widower with a young daughter Lora , and her near neighbor, Kate is faced with the challenge of relating to him as the Kate she is now, not the Kate she used to be, and helping Rob to realize that he has closed himself off from so much in his grief, just as she has done because of her ambition. Kate's cocker spaniel Coco, a constant presence, is a real sweetheart, a loving and accepting soul who brings everyone together because of her warm and gentle heart. Kate and Rob's journey to reestablish themselves and their relationship in the present carries through the entire story. This is truly a book about relationships--a woman with her God, her lover, her family and friends whom she left behind. Kate's ambition carried her from her home. When she comes back to all the with the people she's left behind, she begins to realize that maybe what she was running so hard to find was right in front of her the whole time. But would she have realized that if she'd never taken the journey?