Debbie Macomber’s If Not For You is a Romance Fit For Springtime
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The message of If Not For You is evident from the title alone: this is a story about how each event in our lives can become a catalyst for the next. Each person we meet, each choice we make forms a chain reaction; if it weren’t for that one person who once betrayed us, our hearts would not have been broken. And if our hearts had never been broken, true love could never have healed them.
{{ product: 9780425286951 }}Beth Prudhomme is starting a new life in Portland, determined to escape her mother’s judgment and control (and impatience that Beth is not yet married). But her new life isn’t without hiccups, including a blind date with a tattooed auto mechanic that she can tell within the first few moments is going to go terribly wrong. She’s a high school music teacher…even though she doesn’t agree with her mother’s choice of men, she would never stoop so low.
But in a single moment, everything changes: on her way home from the date, a car rams into Beth’s on the road…and the person who rescues her is none other than Sam, the mechanic himself. He wasn’t too keen on Beth, either—she was too straight-laced for him, and from the look of her, she’d want a serious relationship when he was only interested in romantic company—but in the wake of her brush with death, their connection comes to life.
This may be one of my favorite Macomber romances—and there are many to choose from—but the way she builds intimacy and trust from the shadows of people’s pasts feels fresh in this story. As Sam and Beth grow to love one another, secrets from each of their pasts are revealed which complicate their newfound happiness, along with Sam’s fear that he is not good enough for Beth, an opinion her mother makes perfectly clear that she shares.
More revelations lead to Macomber’s deft interweaving of a second love story into the primary plot: Beth learns that her spinster artist Aunt, Sunshine, once loved a man she, for some mysterious reason, never married. With the best of intentions, Beth interferes, which leads to disaster. Beth tries to clean up her mess, but as she learned in the wake of her accident, a collision cannot be undone. All you can do is try to heal.
With If Not For You, Debbie Macomber returns with another romance that will remind you perfectly of spring: when the cold and lonely past fades away, warmth and sunshine rush in—and alongside them both, love blooms.