Teresa Hill (1)

The Edge of Heaven is the second book in Teresa Hill’s McRaes series. This one follows Sam and Rachel’s oldest adopted daughter, Emma, who has just returned home from her freshman year of college for the holidays. She’s also running away from an abusive boyfriend, but when she arrives home to find her family urgently leaving to go help an aunt, she chooses not to tell them yet. They’ve no sooner left, then a stranger shows up at the door. Rye is in Baxter searching for the older brother he barely remembers. He isn’t even sure he has the right Sam McRae when he knocks on Emma’s door, but even though he’s keeping his real reason for being there on the down-low, she warmly welcomes him into her home and life. Emma immediately takes to Rye and feels safer when he’s there, especially when her ex-boyfriend begins stalking her. When he finds out that the details of this Sam don’t match the records he found of his brother, Rye plans on leaving town, but when he discovers that Emma was abused by a young man who won’t leave her alone, he decides to stay just until her family gets back. One thing leads to another and they start falling for each other, but then Emma’s ex shows up, leading to a fight that could put Rye back in prison for a long time. Even if he can avoid jail time, when Sam and the rest of the family finally return, he discovers the truth that Emma was reluctant to tell him. She’s much younger than he suspected and between the significant age gap between them and their familial connection, it seems that their budding romance may be doomed unless they can figure out a way to smooth things over with Sam.

Emma and her two younger siblings were adopted by Sam and Rachel (Twelve Days) when she was eleven. Seven years have passed and she’s now a college freshman. After her boyfriend knocked her around, she rushed home to Baxter, hoping for the love and support of her family, only to find them leaving in a hurry to help an aunt who is experiencing a dangerous pregnancy. Not wanting to further burden them during this difficult time, she chooses not to tell them. They’ve no sooner left, than Rye shows up at the door, claiming to be a friend of Sam’s, looking for work. Emma welcomes him in, and feels immediately drawn to him. They start getting to know each other a bit, and even though he’s rather secretive about his reasons for being there, she trusts him. Eventually she realizes that there are things about Rye that remind her of Sam and begins to suspect that he may be Sam’s long lost brother. When her ex starts making threatening phone calls, she all but begs Rye to stay and he agrees, but only until Sam returns. Even though he’s considerably older than her and possibly her adoptive father’s brother, Emma can’t seem to help falling for Rye. But then her ex escalates things by breaking into her house, resulting in Rye protecting her the only way he knows how and ending up in jail. Emma fights hard to keep him from going back to prison, but even if she succeeds, she failed to tell him that she’s only eighteen, while he’s thirty-three, and the age difference may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle to an HEA.

I have to admit that there were a number times that Emma frustrated me. For starters, she lets Rye into her home and trusts him implicitly in spite of what just happened with her ex-boyfriend and her biological mother’s history of abuse at the hands of her biological father, something that Rye himself chided her for more than once. I just didn’t feel like the author established strong enough reasons for her doing so. She eventually realizes that Rye reminds her of Sam and suspects they’re brothers, but still she didn’t even know him. Emma also has a martyr complex when it comes to what happens with her ex. I understand that many women blame themselves when abuse occurs, but her self-flagellation got to be a bit much after a while with her trying to take responsibility for every bad thing that occurs, even when Rye and her family keep telling her it’s not her fault. Then much later in the story, when Emma has lost hope that a relationship with Rye will ever materialize, she decides to try to forget him by getting drunk and losing her virginity to some dude she barely knows, which again, given her background seemed like a foolhardy move on her part. She even admits that she tried to do it with some other guy at college who she’d been seeing for a while and couldn’t, so why she thought this would work better, I couldn’t really fathom. It just seemed like a weak set-up for Rye to come to her rescue when the guy gets a little rough with her. But the thing that really bugged me is that all throughout the story, Emma keeps touting that she’s very mature for her age, because she had to grow up so fast when she was younger. However, after she and Rye finally make love for the first time, she behaves like an immature teenager, running away from him in embarrassment (something I didn’t really get at all since it’s what she’d wanted for years) and then refusing to answer his calls or have a mature conversation with him about it. Emma is a kind, caring person, so I didn’t exactly dislike her, but she often didn’t make much sense and definitely wasn’t a standout heroine for me either.

Rye was adopted by a couple who rejected his older brother, Sam. He was too young to remember much and they changed his name, so he didn’t learn the truth about his background until his teens. It upended his life and led him to get into some trouble with the law. However, a stint in juvie ended with a felony manslaughter conviction for killing another kid who was trying to kill him, and he spent ten years in prison for it. Since getting out, he’s been trying to live on the straight and narrow and got a job in construction. Rye recently decided to start searching for his brother, but he’s running out of Sam McRaes when he ends up on Emma’s doorstep. He doesn’t have much faith that this is the right Sam either, and even if he is, that Sam will want anything to do with him. The only problem is, the man isn’t even home and according to Emma might not be back for some time. However, Emma welcomes him in a way he wouldn’t have expected under the circumstances. He’s deeply attracted to her, but when he finds out she’s just a college student, he figures she’s too young for him. But things start to heat up between them anyway when he decides to stay after finding out what her boyfriend did and that he’s still stalking her. When the ex breaks into the house, Rye once again finds himself fighting for his and Emma’s lives against someone who’s trying to do them harm, and it ends with him in jail and possibly going back to prison for violating parole. He’s surprised when both Emma and Sam go to bat for him, but even if they can get him off the hook, he’s now become aware that Emma is only eighteen and the age difference doesn’t prove to be an easy thing to overlook. Overall, I liked Rye pretty well. He’s a chivalrous guy who wants to protect Emma right from the start even though he barely knows her. I appreciated that he also wanted to give her some time to experience life and grow up a little before getting into a lasting relationship.

After finishing The Edge of Heaven, I found myself having mixed feelings about it. I’m not usually bothered by age-gap romances like some readers are, but this is the first time I’ve read one that wasn’t a historical in which there’s such a big age difference and the heroine is still a teenager at the beginning. It’s also the only one I can recall reading in which there was some kind of familial connection. Granted she is a legal adult and in college, and in spite of Rye being her adoptive dad’s brother, he and Emma had only just met, so it wasn’t like she’d grown up around him. However, I have to admit, it all still felt a little strange. I suppose things like this occasionally do happen in real life, though, so I guess it wasn’t that bad. Given the subject matter, I’d say the author handled it as sensitively as she could have without entirely changing the story. She fast-forwards two and a half years until Emma is twenty-one and finishing college before allowing things to really progress between her and Rye, so that was a good thing. Also, during that time apart, Rye and Emma’s feelings for one another never changed even though they both tried to fight them, so it was clear that they were crazy in love. I enjoyed the small town vibe of the story and the close-knit ties within the McRae family are heartwarming. I got a little teary when the entire extended family welcomed Rye that first Christmas, giving him something he’d never really known he was missing. The plot is rather slow-paced with the main excitement being Emma’s ex coming after them, and then at the end, when Rye and Emma finally get together. I waffled a bit on whether to rate it lower than I did due to my misgivings, but ultimately decided not to. Overall, I thought it was a decent story as long as the reader won’t have issues with the somewhat taboo nature of it all.… (mere)

Totally surprised at how much I loved this story. It was totally believable in the way that the older man/younger woman romance was handled. The writing was very well done and the emotions believable. The hero almost ripped your heart out. He wasn't perfect and he had some anger issues but you could really see where they were coming from. He had some hot button issues and was solidly written not waffling all over. The author did a fine job of making him totally in love with the heroine and giving enough to let her grow up without any interference from him. I totally believed that if in the interim she had found a younger man to love he would never have said a word. I also believed in her feelings for him. She was a very grownup 18 year old. Still they didn't actually get together for 3 years after that which just made it all the more believable/acceptable.… (mere)

I have never read a novel by Teresa Hill before and found her first book in "The McRae Series" to be an okay/good read. I tend to like Christmas themed novels in general (they tend to put me in a Christmas mood) and thought this one was better than most I have read in the past few years. I still had some issues with the novel though that kept me from giving it five stars.

The novel is told from three points of view, Rachel McRae, her husband Sam, and their foster child Emma.

The plot revolves around the 12 days before Christmas in a small town in Ohio. Readers find out that Rachel and Sam have been married with no children of their own due to an accident that happened when they were first married. Due to that, Rachel and Sam decided to become foster parents hoping to eventually be able to adopt. However, after the latest foster care situation did not work out for them making both of them decide to stop trying to foster anymore children and to give up on adoption.

Rachel's aunt, a social worker, needs Rachel and Sam to take in three children that need a foster home or the kids will be forced to be split apart. The McRae's agree to do so reluctantly.

I think all in all though it was a good story it just tended to be a bit too long. I feel honestly this could have been two separate books since there seemed to be a lot going on in the novel that did not really get addressed until the very end of the novel.

Also switching back and forth between Rachel, Sam's and then Emma's point of view was just too much. Frankly I think it would have been better if we had just Rachel and Sam's point of view and leave it at that. Emma's point of views were really not that lengthy, I just felt them to be unnecessary and it actually broke up the flow between the main storyline which really was Rachel and Sam's relationship.

I also wish we had seen more interactions with Rachel's family throughout the story since I felt as if they were part of what was wrong and right with Rachel's marriage. I do think that at the end though we do get some nice resolution with Rachel's family concerning she and Sam but it all felt pretty shoehorned in there.

Please note that the book I did reviewed is the Kindle version that was re-released as "Twelve Days: The McRae Series, Book 1). Booklikes is not linking to the actual book review but instead to this older paperback version.

All in all, an okay read. Will probably read the next in the series when I get time.… (mere)

I was looking for a heartwarming holiday-themed read, and while searching my TBR pile, Twelve Days jumped out and grabbed me.:-) It’s essentially a cross between contemporary romance and women’s fiction. There’s enough romance that I’m comfortable categorizing it as such, but it doesn’t follow the same track as most romances. This isn’t a boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, and get their HEA ending sort of romance. In it, Sam and Rachel, our hero and heroine, are already married. In fact, they have been for twelve years, but time and hardships have put distance between them. They experienced a whirlwind romance as teenagers, which led to them marrying quite young after Rachel got pregnant. That ended in tragedy when a car accident killed their unborn child, and Rachel needed a hysterectomy to prevent her from hemorrhaging to death. They desperately wanted children, but couldn’t have any more of their own. Then there were a couple of failed attempts at adoption and a foster parenting experience they thought was going to become permanent until the boy was ordered to be returned to his biological mother. The walls between Sam and Rachel started building with the loss of their baby, and after one heartbreak after another, they’ve all but given up on both life and their marriage. Until Rachel’s aunt, who’s a social worker, brings three abandoned children to their doorstep twelve days before Christmas.

Rachel is a woman mired in grief. She’s never gotten over the loss of her own child, and after being forced to return their foster son, too, she’s been deeply depressed. She’d been slowly building a business as a stained glass artist and restorer, a talent that was handed down to her by her grandfather. She’d also been very active in the community with various volunteer activities. However, the last several weeks have been almost more than she can bear. All she ever really wanted was to be a mother, and her efforts toward that end always seem to be thwarted by fate. When her aunt shows up with the children, Rachel doesn’t think she can do it again, but when her aunt insists she has no place else to take them, Rachel reluctantly gives in but only until after Christmas. Then she discovers that her husband is planning to leave her the day after Christmas. She’s at loose ends regarding her marriage while trying to mother the kids. But gradually, she rises out of her funk to realize that perhaps she’s been rather selfish through the years and that she should focus more on the needs of the children and her husband rather than wallowing in her own misery. She’s also been keeping a secret from her husband all these years that has wracked her with guilt. But maybe if she confesses, it will help clear the air between them and get them back on track. Rachel is a kindhearted, loving woman who’s a great mother, and always seems to look out for the needs of others even though she doesn’t think she is. She also still loves her husband despite the distance that’s grown between them. She realizes she only wants his happiness, and if leaving her will make him happier, she’s willing to let him go, even though it will be hard.

Sam has never wanted anyone except Rachel. He was kind of the town bad boy when they were young, and she was the only one who seemed to see him for who he really was. But after watching her be so sad for so long and not knowing what to do to help her, he thinks that perhaps he’s part of the problem. He’s never really felt he was good enough for her and thinks that perhaps she’d be happier with someone else. Then the children show up and he fears they’ll only lead to more heartbreak for her. Although the kids remind him of a time in his own life he’d rather forget, he can relate to their plight and gradually warms up to them. But Sam still isn’t certain if his marriage can be saved, although a part of him wants that. Sam is very much the strong silent type, who tends to bottle up his problems and keep them to himself. Even after twelve long years of marriage there are things about his childhood he hasn’t ever told Rachel, because he fears she’ll look at him with pity like so many other people throughout the years have. Because of that, I think he’s a little bit prideful, too, as well as not as communicative as I prefer my romance heroes to be. But underneath it all, Sam is a good man, who loves his wife and ends up loving the kids as much as Rachel does.

The three children are all wonderful characters who acted age-appropriately. Emma is the oldest at eleven. She’s the little mommy of the group, always looking out for her younger siblings and trying to do a job that’s beyond her years. She never loses faith in her mother’s love, even though the adults around her think the woman simply abandoned them. Zach is the middle child, and at five years old, he’s a precocious ball of energy. He’s drawn to Sam and becomes his little shadow. Then there’s Grace, the baby, who isn’t yet a year old. Even though she doesn’t talk, the author managed to bring out her sweet, sunny personality. These three grow up to become the hero and heroines of the next three books of the The McRaes series.

Overall, Twelve Days was a gentle story of two people in love, who’ve drifted apart, but who find their way back to one another, while making room in their battered hearts for three little ones during the holiday season. There’s also a slight bit of mystery surrounding what happened to the children’s mother. While I did like the story, it wasn’t quite perfect. Sam and Rachel struggle right up to the final pages with whether their love can still make it, even though they’ve shared secrets and reunited intimately, which didn’t entirely leave me with a satisfied feeling. They’re so tentative around each other that I didn’t quite feel the all-encompassing love that I wanted to feel from them, especially by the end. I think a lot of this had to do with there being little to no blocking in the dialogue scenes. They’re merely long back and forth conversations that are missing the facial expressions, body language, and actions that would have really drawn me into the emotion of the moment. Also, their introspective thoughts surrounding their future and each other can sometimes become a little repetitious. Lastly, the author overuses the word just so much, it was driving me a little batty. But despite these missteps, I still enjoyed the book and found a lot of warmth within its pages, especially surrounding the McRaes holiday traditions. Since I loved the kids and think they’ll grow up to be just as great as adult characters, I look forward to giving the other books in the series a try sometime soon.… (mere)