Synopsis
When Laura James surprises her hardworking husband at the office with a late-night picnic, she is little prepared to find him in the embrace of his appealing business associate. Seven years of marriage and Tom had fallen for another woman, her shocked system registers.
The incident brings to vivid light Tom and Laura's deeper problems - she is horrified by intimacy and her passionless response has frustrated and alienated her husband. In a desperate attempt to reconcile their marriage, Laura insists Tom come to Victoria, British Columbia with her as she researches a novel.
Second honeymooning in the fascinating city, staying at the historic Empress Hotel and studying the roses in the Crystal Garden provides Laura with excellent material for her work, but does Little to remedy her marital crisis. She soons seeks the counsel of a professional marriage therapist. The sessions slowly unearth several eye-opening discoveries about God's intent for marriage, Laura's self image and her troubled history.
Roses in Autumn is a captivating combination of Laura and Tom's fervent desire to repair their marriage and the gentle reaching out of God the Father to two individuals who must find Him to find each other.
Library Journal
In the second in the "Virtuous Heart" series of contemporary romances (following All Things New, LJ 9/1/97), Laura, a romance writer who considers her marriage to Tom to be perfect but for one small flaw, catches him in the arms of another woman. He finally tells her that her inability to enjoy sex is more of a problem than she had acknowledged. In an attempt to save their marriage, the two travel to Vancouver Island for a second honeymoon, but Tom's preoccupation with business does nothing to make Laura more amorous, in spite of the romantic setting. They seek counseling while on the island, which opens some secrets in Laura's past and makes the future seem brighter for the couple. Unfortunately, the book is undermined by a distracting subplot involving drug smuggling and by the counseling, which works far too easily. In addition, the frank treatment of sexual issues may offend more sensitive readers. Overall, libraries may want to pass on this title.