Covet by Tracey Garvis Graves
Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fic
Released: September 17, 2013
Dutton
Reviewed by Mandi
Last year I read On the Island and it really surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy a young man who falls for his tutor after crashing onto an deserted island. But Tracey Garvis Graves made it work really well. So when Covet appeared in my mailbox, even though it was labeled as women’s fic, I thought I’d give it a try as I crave books with ‘marriage in trouble’ themes.
Chris and Claire live in the suburbs, have two kids and fun neighbors, but their marriage is in trouble. A year ago Chris lost his job and unable to find one for an entire year took it’s toll. He became severely depressed, pulling away from Claire as he desperately sought employment. He finally found a job, but now it has him traveling four days a week. He is still emotionally gone from his marriage, and Claire is very lonely.
By chance she meets a police officer named Daniel. They happen to meet again, and Claire starts to reach out to him. She doesn’t physically cheat with him, but she knows emotionally she is cheating on her husband. This is the story of how she deals with that and her road back to her husband.
I know cheating is a big turnoff for many romance readers and I understand emotional cheating can be just as bad as physical cheating. But, this author handles the situation quite delicately. Claire doesn’t throw herself at Daniel. Their friendship is drawn out and long lasting. It’s more that Claire craves an adult friendship, and as her girlfriends all have drama in their own lives, she turns to Daniel. He is patient, always willing to listen, and oh yes – easy on the eyes. Claire knows that what she has with Daniel is not proper, but the pain inside of her whispers to her that it is okay.
But let’s not forget about Chris. I was so happy to get Chris’s point of view in this book. We needed it to understand where he is coming from in all of this. Depression is an ugly beast and Chris has a very hard time dealing with it. He hates to travel and leave his family, but he hates not being able to support them even more. He is drowning in work, and he knows he is disconnected from Claire. I liked how he is portrayed in this book a lot.
The marriage is saved at the end so we can all breathe a sigh of relief but this is also where my frustration comes in. We have this long, drawn out process where Claire steps out of her marriage and into Daniel’s life only to have it all come to a conclusion so quickly. We explore so many emotions between Claire and Chris separately and Claire and Daniel together, we miss out on the emotions of Claire and Chris together. It all gets resolved too quickly (even with Daniel and who he moves onto). I wish the author would have taken her time at the end to show us just how Claire and Chris were going to mend things.
Overall though this was a different read and I liked it for the most part.
Rating: B-
I felt the same way about the ending. It was too rushed after everything was drawn out. I also thought that Claire was too Stepford Wife-ish. I wanted more emotion from her. I know she has to keep it together for her kids but I just wanted her to really lose it at least once.
I also the mundane every day details of Claire’s life made parts of the book boring. Like the thing with her back and going to the masseuse. I still don’t understand what was the point.