I gave this three stars just because I like Penny Jordan. Typical runaway / immature wife, alpha hero. Add an interfering aunt who was married to the hero's father & you have added complications. Good read for a rainy day.

Okay, so I like it. I'm not ashamed.

Kate was the classic, passionate, immature heroine who married an older hero and struggles with just about everything. Kate wanted to be a feisty heroine and to achieve this she felt the necessity of doing something important and independent, resisting the domination of her alpha male husband and not settling down to be a wife and mother. She was aided in this by marrying a scientist who worked on a defence project including nuclear missiles. Naturally she decided that her protest against his domination included becoming a well known anti nuclear activist, refusing to attend work parties and not bringing children into a nuclear holocaust. Jake eventually got tired of the angst and her being jealous of the women at the parties Kate refused to go to and turfed her out. He did tell her to come back when she was grown up which in code means "To prove I love you, I set you free so you can come back to me."

Kate of course takes it to mean he never loved her and goes off to make a life for herself. She does grow up but Jake is now in the US doing military defence stuff and being incredibly important and she has something so much more important to cling to. Yes, gentle reader, she has her PRIDE. It keeps her warm in her cold and lonely bed at night (not really but we are great at self delusion).

Finally we get to the start of the book. Kate is a much loved member of a small community that incidentally has a nuclear power plant. What's the chance of that in Romancelandia? There is a new director taking over and the local anti nuclear committee is hopping. Kate, naturally, is secretary and her new beau is also on the committee. Can we guess who the new director is?

Surprise, surprise. The former military nuclear missile making genius is now working in the power side of the industry. Why would he do this? we wonder, considering he was heading straight to the top of the Pentagon over in the US and bringing home the big bucks. You can percolate on that while we admire Kate's reaction.

Well we don't really need to ponder on that. She is of course horrified to find her own nuclear free zone is now the home of her nuclear fissionable hot ex. Not ex actually. Cos they were never divorced. Not that it stops him hanging with the local trollop...er...I mean stunningly attractive Other Woman.

You can tell I enjoyed this read, can't you. I don't mind these young heroines because they are YOUNG and immature and I like watching them grow up. Kate grows up quite a lot during her separation from Jake but we also see her learning to look at things more objectively rather than swamping them with emotion. Ending was satisfying.

Their marriage had gone up in flames.

Jake Harvey was every woman's secret type. During their brief and volatile union, Kate had been wildly jealous, dangerously insecure, and he'd never reassured her with words of love - only of desire.

Kate went up like dry tinder every time Jake touched her, and she resented that power over her almost as much as she abhorred his career. Finally he threw her out, saying, "Come back when you've grown up."

But Jake had come to her instead. And Kate's fuse was as short as ever when it came to him, his work and the latest woman clinging to his arm.