Review: A Change in Tide

A Change in Tide by Freya Barker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mia is severely agoraphobic, although I would say that her fear is of people rather than open spaces, she is happy pottering around in her garden or rowing on the lake but a trip into the local small town to visit the supermarket can induce panic attacks. Her only trips out of the house are for her weekly therapy sessions. Gradually over the years as her condition worsened Mia has lost everything, her career, her husband, her friends. Nos she is down to one friend. Mia lives alone with her dog Griffin on a lake in rural Canada. Her solitude is spoilt one day when she finds her new neighbour ‘entertaining’ a scantily clad woman in the lake and on his deck. Although she is annoyed by the noise of the powerboat and the woman’s shrieks, she is also strangely aroused when she sees them having sex on the deck – until her neighbour hears her moan!!!! To make matters worse, the next day she sees a heavily pregnant woman clearly moving into the house – what a sleaze.

Jared Kesla is a retired hockey player, he’s bought a home in rural Canada to look after his pregnant sister Jordy and get away from the booze and groupies lifestyle that he fell into after a punishing tackle retired him early. He is having one last fling before Jordy’s arrival when he hears his neighbour taking more of an interest than he feels comfortable with. He also berates himself for falling into the tabloid trap – he expects that his new neighbour won’t take long to sell pictures of him behaving badly to whatever sleazy tabloid she can.

But when Jordy goes into labour one day while she and Jackson are on the lake Mia feel compelled to put her previous professional experience as a midwife into action, rescuing the brother and sister and delivering the baby. From that experience a strange friendship develops between them. Mia has no idea who Jackson is, she doesn’t follow sports, and Jackson is intrigued by a woman who wears no make-up and spends most of her days wearing old baggy mens clothing.

I recently read the third book in this series and was sufficiently smitten that I immediately got the previous two books. Freya Barker seems to specialise in writing romances about 40-something year old women, sometimes with a disability, which really venture into a new area for me. The characters are likeable and sympathetic, they may have weathered adversity but it isn’t all angst, angst, angst and they are thoughtful.

Mia’s disability didn’t just disappear, she remains afraid of crowds of people throughout the book, but her relationship with Jackson and Jordy helps her to expand her world.

Loved it.

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