By Mary Beth Keane

Two families living side by side on Long Island. Both the fathers are cops. But these two families could not be more different, and it’s all because of the mothers, which makes for a fascinating story. Of course we all love the girl next door story, and the guy down on his luck story, but this one twists them together in a period piece with Irish cops. There’s definitely some romance, but the family drama reigns supreme.

I love the setting – and it starts out in the 1970s. I’m a big fan of stories that take place in the past but in an era outside of war (or at least, not about the war). I love the complexity of the problems in the story because each character must deal with multiple complicating factors. There is no easy fix for the problems the characters must face. In fact, at many turns, resolution seems impossible. And that’s why I must come back to the resilient strength of these characters. They could stand up in a hurricane as far as I’m concerned. Well, some of them anyway.

The story takes us back to a simpler time in America – maybe that’s another reason to love it. But simpler times were not so simple. And truly, while we may think the times we live in are the most tumultuous in history, we have merely to peek behind the curtains of a simple household in the 1970s to see that complexity and tumult have always existed and will always be a part of life. It’s how we face that tumult that makes us the people we want to be (or don’t).

If that’s not worth reading then I don’t know what is.