At Last by Barbara Bretton

Exciting romantic dramaby harstan

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September 09, 2000: For the first time in eight years, Manhattan veterinarian Graciela Taylor returns to her hometown of Idle Point, Maine to attend her father?s latest wedding. Gracie abruptly left town by herself the night she was to elope with her beloved Noah Chase, who left shortly afterward too.

To her chagrin, Noah has returned to sell off the family?s newspaper. While he always wondered why she left him, Gracie thinks back to those days when her widowed father Ben hated Noah for no reason except he was a Chase; his aristocratic dad Simon loathed Gracie for no reason except perhaps because she was a Taylor. She still loves Noah though he is the father of someone else?s girl and still hurts from the secret that Simon revealed to her on that fateful day.

AT LAST is an exciting romantic drama that highlights the destructive side of obsessive love on innocent future generations. Ben is a pathetic drunk and Simon seemingly in control is as emotionally as unstable as his rival is. The story line uses flashbacks to tell the tale of eight years ago, but although the technique works, readers must wonder why the intelligent and ambitious Gracie would accept Simon?s word without talking to anyone else to collaborate it. Still, Barbara Bretton provides her fans with an emotional contemporary tale that hits the guts and heart with its force.

Harriet Klausner