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Feel-good lit.
Catherine Ryan Hyde, author of Pay It Forward, makes a new contribution to the genre with Love in the Present Tense.
It's about something one of the protagonists calls "forever love," the kind that "can never be broken ... no circumstances can pull apart."
The test of forever love in Hyde's novel is bestowed on three characters: Pearl, Leonard and Mitch. When Pearl is 13, she has sex with a police officer and becomes pregnant. The story's chain of events forces Pearl to drop out of sight with her baby, Leonard, who is born prematurely and suffers from asthma and debilitating vision.
One day, Pearl leaves 5-year-old Leonard with her neighbor Mitch and never returns. Did she abandon her son or did something terrible happen?
Love in its pure and its deceptive forms are played against each other in Love in the Present Tense.
The story dishes out plenty of sentiment about loyalty, faith and family. If you love Pay It Forward, The Notebook and The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven, this novel will envelop you like a fuzzy blanket.
Love in the Present Tense
By Catherine Ryan Hyde
Flying Dolphin/Doubleday
262 pp., $21.95
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