AUTHOR: Linda Wood Rondeau
DATE: October 2015
PUBLISHER: Elk Lake Publishing
STARS: *****
When Jolene Murdock receives a call from an old boyfriend, her carefully crafted world crumbles. Told of her estranged father’s terminal illness, she returns to a town she’d left three years ago, the scene of her secret sin. She thought her pending marriage to rising political star Robert Ashworth the penance God required of her … to forget her talents, her music, and her love for Brookside.
Dwight Etting is now the junior partner in Murdock & Etting. But Big Mike Murdock has run the business into the ground. In hopes of saving the company, Dwight convinces Big Mike’s daughter to return to Brookside to help her terminally ill father. Why does she cling to her resentment over a stupid argument on prom night? What happened to that spirited girl, whose fiddle playing won the hearts of all Essex County?
At first glance, I thought Fiddler’s Fling would be a typical long-gone-wrong-and-then-right-again romance. But it is so much more. Author Linda Wood Rondeau tackles prickly family relationships, soul-deadening secrets, and conspiracies in this wonderful story. And does it spectacularly.
Jolene and Dwight, high school sweethearts, no longer have much in common. In fact, they are poles apart in almost everything. Until Jolene finds out that her father is dying. Past hurts and present ambitions try to keep the father and daughter at odds with one another, and I had to keep reading to discover who or what would triumph.
Fiddler’s Fling grabbed me at the first page and held me spell-bound to the end. Parts of the story required a box of tissues close at hand as the lead characters strove to find their way. The satisfying ending was worth every tear. Linda Wood Rondeau and Fiddler’s Fling earn five stars.
I was offered a copy of this book in return for my honest opinion, which I have given.