Laurel, Runaway Love Story’s heroine, is a free-spirit who wants to be an artist. Her plans are derailed time and again by her own lack of commitment and tendency to run away when things don’t go her way. In Runaway Love Story, her plans are again derailed, this time by outside forces: her aunt, Maxie, is 90 years old and suffering from memory loss. Maxie has mentored Laurel and paid her college tuition, so Laurel “owes” her. So Laurel returns to Eugene, OR to help Maxie move into an assisted living facility. Laurel envisions Eugene as a temporary stopover in her plans to move to San Francisco and run an art gallery.
While running, she meets Doug, a good guy/teacher whose mother is in the same assisted living development. Not your average romance hero, Doug is tall, lanky—and bald. Laurel is six feet tall, and he’s a good bit taller. He has deep roots in Eugene and doesn’t plan on leaving. These two have hot chemistry but must work out if that is enough for them to weave a life together.
Stone’s use of every day situations like putting a loved one in a nursing home brings a deep humanity to this novel that is usually lacking in romance, especially one this hot! It certainly elevates the book above the usual romance. Laurel and Doug face a rough road with lots of potholes and emotional baggage as they try to find a compromise that will let their relationship blossom. I read it in one sitting.
(The Wild Rose Press rates this as “erotica,” but I frankly found it more sexy love story than raunchy erotica.)
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Runaway Love Story can be found at: Amazon and The Wild Rose Press
