Covet by Tracey Garvis-Graves – a Review

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Description:
What if the life you wanted, and the woman you fell in love with, belonged to someone else?

Chris and Claire Canton’s marriage is on life support. Downsized during the recession and out of work for a year, Chris copes by retreating to a dark place where no one can reach him, not even Claire. When he’s offered a position that will keep him away from home four nights a week, he dismisses Claire’s concern that time apart could be the one thing their fragile union can’t weather. Their suburban life may look idyllic on the outside, but Claire has never felt so disconnected from Chris, or so lonely.

Local police officer Daniel Rush used to have it all, but now he goes home to an empty house every night. He pulls Claire over during a routine traffic stop, and they run into each other again at the 4th of July parade. When Claire is hired to do some graphic design work for the police department, her friendship with Daniel grows, and soon they’re spending hours together.

Claire loves the way Daniel makes her feel, and the way his face lights up when she walks into the room. Daniel knows that Claire’s marital status means their relationship will never be anything other than platonic. But it doesn’t take long before Claire and Daniel are in way over their heads, and skating close to the line that Claire has sworn she’ll never cross.

Review

Covet by Tracey Garvis-Graves is another fabulous book about love, life, situations and subjects that push our emotions, and question our beliefs.  Covet is a wonderful story of a marriage that starts to slowly fall apart, caused by normal life situations, and how we handle them.    

When we meet Claire Canton, she is with her group of friends from the neighborhood, which reminded me of Desperate Housewives.  Almost all of the wives have their own issues, but this story belongs to Claire, and her marriage to Chris.  They have been married for over 12 years, each being the love of their lives, with two children, Jordan and Josh. Chris was a very successful business man, making good money to give his family a good life, but things have changed.  He has been unemployed for over a year, now going into their savings to make ends meet.  Chris loses his confidence, and begins to take anti depressant pills, which slowly causes him to pull away from Claire.  Claire has been understanding trying to help Chris; but he continues to become more distant, shutting her out.  Claire becomes lonely, somewhat angry, and she herself begins to not care anymore, devoting herself to her children.  Finally Chris gets a job, not quite what he wants, but he needs to work, and this job requires traveling 5 days a week, which will be more loneliness for Claire.   

One day while driving, Claire is stopped by a cop for a broken tailgate. She meets Officer Daniel Rush, who immediately catches her eye, as he is a hunk.  Circumstances accidentally have Daniel and Claire run into each other a couple of times, and slowly a real friendship develops.  Daniel himself is recently coming off of a divorce, and he too is lonely, keeping himself busy working long hours on the police force.

Daniel and Claire spend more time together as friends, both of whom are lonely, texting each other often, having  weekly lunch meetings, riding on his bike, shopping and even going to the movies.  Claire began to look forward to meeting with Daniel, but she was always careful to keep this as a friendship.   As Chris’s visits become less and less, and his distance drives Claire to look forward more and more to her meetings with Daniel. 

Claire confides to her friend, who warned her to be careful. The question comes up “Do you think men and women can be just friends?”

Slowly their friendship becomes something more emotionally, as they both begin to care about each other. A romance does build, though there is never any sexual relationship.  Daniel knew it was wrong to care abut Claire, as he did not want to be the reason for breaking up her family, but he couldn’t deny his growing feelings for her.  It was a struggle for Daniel not to push Claire further.  Claire also knows where this could be heading, and that it was wrong, as she still loved her husband, even if he has been distant.  But she also knows she is falling hard for Daniel.  Can she love two men?

Chris recognizes he is away too much from the family he loves, and is pushing himself beyond to work hard to redeem himself, and build his confidence. When Claire and the children get sick, Chris ignores his abusive boss, and goes home for week to take care of his family.  Claire ends up in the hospital deathly ill, and Chris and Claire must come to terms with their lives and what needs to be done. Will Claire stay with Chris?  What happens with Daniel?

This story is written in three different pov’s; Claire, Chris and Daniel, and it was great to be able to see each of their thoughts in these trying times.  This is a wonderful insightful story about love, marriage, relationships. No one does this better then Tracey Garvis-Graves.  She can push our buttons emotionally, making us question our own feelings.

Do you consider a friendship between a man and woman to be adultery if there is no sexual relationship?  Were Daniel and Claire wrong to become friends and spend time together to alleviate their loneliness?  I myself felt torn between the developing relationship between Claire and Daniel.   She cared about him, but fought those feelings that were becoming stronger, as she remained loyal to her husband.  Daniel was a super wonderful guy, who would be perfect for any woman.  He was sweet, caring, and held his emotions in tact, as he did not want her to get hurt. I myself totally fell in love with Daniel. 

Despite that this relationship was wrong or was doomed, you found yourself at times rooting for them.  Personally, I was not on the Chris bandwagon early on, as his shutting out his family caused major repercussions, which he should have handled differently.

In the midst of this story about Claire, Chris, and Daniel, there was an ongoing story of the people around them.  Tracey Garvis-Graves creates some wonderful secondary characters as she shows us life among friends, isn’t always as it seems; with an array of a life changing topics, such as unemployment, finance, gambling, alcoholism, cheating, etc.

Covet is another wonderful and emotional story by Tracey Garvis-Graves.  If you want a simple thought provoking romance with life situations, but one that does have it’s own HEA, then Covet is a must read. 

Reviewed by Barb

Copy provided by Publisher