Reunion: A Novel

Reunion has held my attention from the beginning, which is not always easy to do. I will put down a book by chapter 3 if I can't embrace the characters and plot. There must be elements of reality interspersed with enough whimsy or fiction, to remind me I am reallly reading a novel. Blue is the focal point of the book, yet her supporting characters do provide good insight and background. She is living a life that is not true to her nature and she does not know how to change. The ironic element is her television role, where she has an image of perfection. Many of us face similar contradictions each day, just not on the level portrayed in the story. So the reader can relate to Blue and mistakes made when young, decisions that can alter the direction of one's life. I would have liked more attention paid to the relationship between Blue and her sister Melody, as well as with her personal assistant Marcy. Tensions and loyalties are probed on a superficial level. For example, how did Marcy get her role as Blue's assistant? What does Melody want from her sister and how can the two finally find peace? Maybe a sequel will answer these questions and others.

Nineteen year-old Harmony Blue Kucharski is single, alone, and pregnant. She opts to put her son up for adoption. She had a difficult childhood and only wants the best for her son. Twenty years later: Blue Reynolds is a very successful Chicago-based talk show hostess. She has everything that money can buy, everything but happiness. During the taping of a teen pregnancy show, Blue loses herself and begins to defend a young pregnant teen that is a guest of the show. Blue realizes what she's missing in her life: knowing what happened to her son. She hires a private investigator to find the location and name of her son's adoptive parents. He finds the location of the daughter of her midwife, and begins sending her money in return for her medical file. While taping an episode of The Blue Reynold's Show in Key West, Blue is reunited with Mitch Forrestor, her former English Professor. They had a relationship twenty years ago, and the dissolution of this relationship is what caused blue (then Harmony Blue) to rebound and find herself pregnant. Is this reunion Fate's way of telling her to fight to regain everything she lost those decades ago? When Blue decides to help Mitch produce his literary documentary, Literary Lions, Blue meets his thirty-something son, Julian. Julian puts a bit of a kink in Mitch and Blue's potential relationship. When her past is revealed, Blue must quickly decide just how much she is willing to relinquish in order to find true happiness. Reunion tells a a story that pulled me in during the first few pages. Blue's character is a strong and honest one. One can't help but feel for her and everything she was forced to experience in life. The secondary characters are extremely well-developed as well and serve as a backbone to the storyline. All of the characters are human, they have natural faults real challenges they are forced to address. The tale that Reunion portrays is a powerful one. Fowler's writing paints the setting of Key West as if it were a painting that is being unveiled before our eyes. The imagery and detail pulls the reader into the story. I felt the sun beating on my face, smelled the warm ocean breeze. The ending leaves me begging for a sequel so I can follow the characters on their journey of rediscovery Reunion is the perfect book to take along with you to the beach, or in my case, to read on a rainy day.

As she nears forty, Chicago based talk show host Blue Reynolds knows she has come a long way from when she was the impoverished Harmony Blue Kucharski. However, she has kept one secret that she hid from her mom and sister that has left her filled with remorse. When she was nineteen she loved English Professor Mitch Forrester but he rejected her advances. On a rebound fling she got pregnant. She could not raise the child nor tell her family and abortion was not an option at least for her; so she arranged through her midwife to have her baby adopted in what was probably an illegal deal. Filled with regret, she hires a private investigator to find her son although her career and reputation will probably be trashed. On location in Key West taping her show, Blue and Mitch meet on his show Literary Lions. They still desire one another, but his thirtyish year old son international reporter Julian objects. However Julian is confused though he does not hide his scorn for his dad's celebrity floozy; Julian is unsure whether he objects because she is closer to his age than that of his dad or because he wants her. REUNION is an engaging family drama as the past resurfaces because people in the present remember the great, the bad and the ugly times. The key triangle seems real as all three involved have flaws and remorse while the support cast like her family and his grandparents enhance the plot. As each of the trio learns, with love a person can do just about anything. Harriet Klausner

REUNION is a beach read with bite, a story about the choices we make, the consequences we must live with, and the second chances we all need. I loved the beautifully evoked settings--North Carolina, Key West, even Iraq--and the plot twists that made the story anything but predictable. Mostly, I loved the characters: two yummy men, an academic administrator with heart and cleavage, the aging hippie mother who discovers true love, and, of course, the heroine: Blue Reynolds. From the moment I met Blue, the talk show host who catches snowflakes on her tongue and walks barefoot through the streets of Key West, I fell into her story and didn't want to leave. Despite the bizarre world in which she lives, Blue is down-to-earth--bemused by the celebrity and wealth that have isolated her from at least one person she loves. I desperately wanted her to find her happy-ever-after! While REUNION is very different to SOUVENIR, Ms Fowler's first novel, I think it will appeal to fans of her writing and her characters. This is one fan who can't wait for novel three!

Once upon a time, a young girl named Harmony Blue Kucharski had big dreams. Despite all the evidence to the contrary - an unsettled childhood and adolescence only the least of it - she was a most unlikely candidate for the destiny she imagined for herself. Fast forward more than twenty years to the confident, popular talk-show host of "The Blue Reynolds Show" in Chicago, and discover that some dreams do come true after all. But what did that little girl Harmony Blue have to do to spin these dreams into reality? And what did she have to turn away from to make her fantasies come true? A secret lurks within - something discarded, along with the old Harmony Blue in that long ago time - but Blue Reynolds is determined to find someone she lost. Two "someones," in fact. The lover who left her all those years ago, and the baby she had to give up for adoption. On the way to opening up this Pandora's Box, Blue will unleash a host of unexpected events, all beginning when The Blue Reynolds Show goes on location to Key West, Florida, where her former lover's parents reside. There she comes face to face with Mitch Forrester, who is unexpectedly visiting his parents Dan and Lynn Forrester, and Mitch's thirty-something grown son Julian. Blue then learns that while dreams may come true, some things in life can be better and more unexpected than the greatest fantasies. But what price will she have to pay to transform pain and regrets into promises and second chances? Therese Fowler's Reunion: A Novel is an evocative, dramatic and sensitive exploration of finding love in the most serendipitous places. Laurel-Rain Snow Author of: Web of Tyranny, etc.