Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: Bittersweet
Author: Candice Poarch
Publisher: Dafina Books
ISBN: 0-7582-1237-2
Release Date: July 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: Contemporary Romance - Arabesque
Year/Setting: Current/Manhattan & Atlanta
Overall rating: 4.5
Sexual content rating: Subtle +
Language (profanity) rating: None
Candice's Website: members.cox.net/candicepoarch
Desiree Prescott’s life is all laid out. She is an account executive for a prestigious New York firm. She is engaged to the just right man and they are planning to be an upwardly mobile couple. Granted she had a few issues with her father when he decided not to take his meds, but he lived in Macon with her Aunt Nadine so it wasn’t like she had to worry about it every day. Her mother had a life of her own so again all is right with the world.
This time though when Aunt Nadine called it was for more than just telling her that her father had gone off his meds. It was to explain that she had a half sibling. It turns out her father had an affair with a woman who was also stationed in Vietnam before he married Desiree’s mother. He didn’t know a child had come out of that union. That child grew up in Atlanta, married and has three children. Why is she finding out about it now? Jordan Payne (her half brother) has been killed in an accident along with his wife and another couple. Leaving his three children, and the couple’s child, as orphans. The only living family is Jordan’s father and half sister. Since her father can’t handle it right now (he suffers from PTSD), that means Desiree.
She doesn’t hesitate as she flies to Atlanta and attempts to make a family out of these four hurting children. Gerard Kingsley is a ball player who lives next door. It appears her brother Jordan did quite well managing ball players and has amassed a very nice house in a great neighborhood and a wealth of money to go along with it. But more importantly, he created some great friends who step in to help her and the kids with the transition – most especially Gerard.
Over time, Desiree starts to question her life as it was and where it will go. Was Paul the right man for her to marry? Her leave of absence would be over in a few short months (and there is a major project on the line) – what will she do then? Can she really take the kids back to the hustle of New York after the quiet life they lived in the suburbs of Atlanta? Can she deal with the feelings developing for Gerard?
I really enjoyed the dynamics of Desiree’s family in Bittersweet. Sometimes when I read a book I get left with the feeling that other families out there are "normal" and mine is the only one with quirks. Candice portrayed family in a very real way and demonstrates there are varying degress of normalcy. 
She showed the effect something like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder can have on an individual along with the entire family. But that same disorder doesn’t have to destroy the family.
Candice shows the power of character held by the two older women in Desiree’s life as shown in her aunt and her mother. These two women have taken care of the family and risen above everything thrown their way and come out on top. She also shows the strength and yet within that the weakness surrounding the children who are left behind.
Of course, there is the main couple – Desiree and Gerard. Desiree has to weigh all of the rights and wrongs of the situation but even more than the black and white of that she has to wade through the gray areas of life. Life isn’t cut and dry the majority of the time and this illustrated that dynamic.
Gerard’s greatest strength didn’t come in his playing ball or managing money but in knowing how to step back and allow Desiree the space she needed to come to her own conclusions and yet never truly giving up on her.
Lori
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