Home Before Dark [Mass Market Paperback]

I have very much enjoyed the two previous books I had read by Susan Wiggs - they were Historical Romances - but when this book arrived from inter-library loan and I read the blurb on the back it seemed I'd picked the wrong sort of book for me. The story was evidently about family relationships and tensions following a woman adopting her sister's child at birth. I put off reading the book for a while but when I finally started it I was immediately engrossed.

Jessie Ryder is a successful photographer but with secrets. The first secret is that Lila, her niece, is actually her daughter. Her sister Luz and her husband Ian took Lila the moment she was born and have brought her up as their own child along with three sons that came along later. But there are more secrets that Luz doesn't know - Jess and Ian had a brief fling before he got together with Luz and Ian is the father of Lila - both adoptive and natural. But there are even more secrets; Jessie is visiting them now, after sixteen years, as she is losing her sight and wants to take a final `look' at her family, particularly her daughter, before it all goes dark.

Jessie is an interesting character and I wasn't always sure I liked her. She deals with emotions by running away and never seems to stick with anything. She comes like a whirlwind into Luz and Ian's life and appears to be causing disruption - teenager Lila is becoming wayward and ends up involved in a tragedy, and even the grieving widower next door gets sucked in to Jessie's mayhem. And yet she's also a woman who feels greatly for the mistakes that she has made in her life and who wants her family to be happy and does what she can to further that.

Despite me not really being interesting in family relationship books this one was very good - I wanted things to turn out well, for Jess and her sister to go back to the close relationship that they formerly had, for Jess to have the support she would need in her future. This book portrayed the complex family dynamics that can take place in what seem to be ordinary lives and the ways in which those we love can hurt us as well as heal us. There's a gentle and sweet romance in the book too, as well as a fascinating vignette into what it must be like to go blind as an adult. I recommend this book as an enjoyable and excellently-written read.

I don't like Wigg's historical novels, but I've enjoyed all her contemporary novels so far. In this one you have two sisters now in their mid to late thirties, Luz and Jessica. Luz has always been the responsible mother figure, taking on the world and its problems, solving her sister's problems and scrapes. Jessica is wilder, living life for the moment until that is she is twenty one. Finding herself pregnant, Jessica panics. She talks Luz and her new husband into adopting her child, while she takes off to the other side of the world on a photographic assignment. Jessica, when faced with the flee or fight scenareo tends to flee. Luz takes on the responsibility as usual and put her own hopes and dreams to one side as she has always done. However, she truely loves the little premature scrap that her sister has given birth to. Jessica stays out of her daughter's life, feeling that it is fairer to all concerned that way. Only keeping in touch by email, telephone and postcards; however, her daughter is always in her thoughts. She told Luz and Ian not to tell Lelia that she is adopted. Sixteen years later, Jessica has to confront a personal tradegy which will affect the rest of her life and she heads home to small town Texas, Luz and Lelia her daughter. She decides that she needs to tell her daughter that she is her mother. As you can imagine that decision distrupts Luz and Ian's lives. Leila is going through a rebellious teenage stage and doing some typically stupid things, that teenagers tend to do. Added to the mix is Dusty, a young widower and pilot with a baby daughter. He lives the other side of the lake. An enjoyable, lovely story of scecrets, decisions and growing up.