Time Enough For Love, by Suzanne Brockmann

I read Suzanne Brockmann's Time Enough For Love on the bus on my way to Punta del Este on Saturday. It's only 212 pages long, so the 2 hours 10 minutes trip was just long enough. I finished it a couple of blocks before I had to get off the bus.

The sinfully handsome stranger kept calling out her name, but how could Maggie Winthrop believe the wild things he told her -- especially when he stood naked outside her back door? Chuck Della Croce knew his story about coming back from the future to prevent a disaster and save her life sounded crazy, but the attraction that sparked between him gave him hope. Would sharing his secrets and getting it right this time alter fate?

Daring to test the boundaries of reality when it comes to true love, Suzanne Brockmann persuades us to accept that anything is possible! Destiny had given him a second chance to win the woman whoâ€ï?½d haunted his dreams, but was there time to make her understand that loving her always wouldnâ€ï?½t be long enough?

Now, time-travels are not my thing, usually. I find it hard to suspend disbelief (it doesn't help that the logistics of the time-travel itself are often really lame) and I find the whole "if I do this it'll change the future this way, and so and so will disappear, and..." tiresome to figure out and usually illogical anyway. But... this one's a Suzanne Brockmann (and a loan from María Inés!), so I tried it.

It started so-so, but I ended up loving it. Yeah, it still had all that tiresome speculation, but I cared so much about the characters that it didn't bother me all that much. Chuck, Charles, Charlie, whatever, was a great character (characters?) and Maggie was pretty kick-ass. I loved their relationship and all that emotion. Also, though it felt a bit weird to have Maggie making love with 2 guys, it was a good kind of weird, since Brockmann did convince me that it was really the same guy.

Oh, and Brockmann writes the best love scenes. All that emotion I just mentioned, you see? Her love scenes are not just descriptions of the mechanics of love-making. We see exactly what her characters are feeling, and since they are almost always overcome by strong emotions, the scenes turn out to be steamy.

Worst thing: the terrorist plot thingie, with an organization named Wizard-9! Best thing: the ending, especially the last scene. It was a surprise, in a way, and I loved it. I would have been happy enough without it, but it was the cherry on the cake. I was really fond of Chuck!

PS - Liked how the cover actually represented a scene from the book, down to their clothes and the cactus on the table.