Blog Tour: Disclosure of the Heart (Beside Your Heart #2) by Mary Whitney
Title: Disclosure of the Heart (Beside Your Heart #2)
Author: Mary Whitney
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publication Date: November 5, 2013
Publisher: OmniFic Publishing
Event organized by: Literati Author Services, Inc.
Sixteen years is a long time to wait for your true love to reappear, and, anyway, Nicki Johnson couldn’t wait for the impossible to happen. Hard life lessons have taught her that fairy tales are children’s stories, and fate is cruel. Burying her hopes, she’s spent the last sixteen years focused and driven toward her career, and it’s landed her with a job at the White House with a gem of a boyfriend. But when her high school love, Adam Kincaid, walks into the White House as a BBC reporter, Nicki’s world is thrown into turmoil as she relives their past. Adam has come back for her, but has he arrived too late?
Even before she graduated from law school, Mary Whitney knew she wasn’t cut out to be a real lawyer. Drawn to politics, she’s spent her career as an organizer, lobbyist, and nonprofit executive. Nothing piques her interest more than a good political scandal or romance, and when she stumbled upon writing, she put the two together. A born Midwesterner, naturalized Texan, and transient resident of Washington, D.C., Mary now lives in Northern California with her two daughters and real lawyer husband.
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I loved Beside Your Heart (my review) and anxiously waited for the continuation of Nicki and Adam's story. Disclosure of the Heart jumps ahead sixteen years and while this stretch in their lives didn't bother me, the more I read, the more I realized not only had the characters changed, but so did I.
Change is a prevalent theme in this book. Nicki has changed her views on love (especially after what her English boyfriend, Adam, did in the first book). She has become a career-driven woman. A position with a politician friend of her father's led to a two year stint with the Peace Corps, and now her old boss has become president. Nicki is a press secretary to the most important man in our country. She has also been dating Juan Carlos who travels the world helping politicians with their images and campaigns. Adam has also changed. He is living in Washington, D.C. as a journalist with the BBC. He is still single, though involved with an English reporter. When Nicki spots him during a press debriefing, old memories threaten to return, but she is different now and her job is important. She keeps the past hidden away. Adam seems to want to spend time with her, excluding the daily hour he sees her for the press conferences. He runs into her at a restaurant and meets her boyfriend, but that doesn't stop him from asking her to dance. When Nicki is in his arms is the first time we see a spark of who she was--a teen girl madly in love with an English boy. As he draws her closer, the overwhelming urge to rekindle what they once shared resurfaces and she once again has to squash her desire and face her life as it is now.
Mary Whitney's writing continues to draw me in and her characters keep me invested. We watch two individuals-once so much in love-dance around each other as adults, worried about job security, image and reputation. Nicki is emotionally closed off, evident in her scenes with the suave and charming Juan Carlos. Even with his jet setting, it is obvious he loves her. Does she love him? Adam seems aloof, quiet, and determined to see Nicki as much as he can so if he still cares for her, why keep his girlfriend in England? When a family situation arises, this impacts him and makes him decide to change his present life. Is he too late? Has he lost Nicki for good?
I enjoyed reading Disclosure of the Heart, but I will honestly admit I felt something lacking. The initial spark, the lovely qualities of Nicki and Adam's love story, that exciting newness of first love and lust, wasn't here. As adults their story just wasn't as intense for me. So much time is spent on their jobs and dealing with avoiding scandal at every cost, I didn't feel that closeness to the characters I once did. I applaud the author for continuing a couple's story from a Young Adult/New Adult novel to an adult one (something rarely done). So many questions rose in my mind as I read, especially why did Adam wait sixteen years? As much as I liked the second book, I couldn't fall in love with it.
Rating: 3.5
1/2
Cover comment:
I don't care for this cover at all. There is too much much white and it washes the couple away. There are so many covers with a couple in bed, it becomes boring after awhile.
Book source:
I received a promotional copy in return for my honest review during a blog tour.
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