Beautiful In My Eyes - Jewel Adams
I offered to read this for a lovely lady on a GR group, and while I gave her feedback right after I finished I have been horribly behindhand on getting a review completed and posted.
It is the tale of Giselle, a woman blissfully married to a magnificent Scottish man (Julian) with a lovely young son, who has approximately two major wrinkles in her life: a good friend has just told her her marriage is breaking up, and Giselle is finding more and more hair in her brush and in her sink every day. She is in good health – but she is losing her hair. It becomes almost an obsession, the hiding of it
Julian is just about perfect. If this were a longer or less tightly focused story he might be too perfect, but as it is it's very enjoyable to read about him and about this beautiful, enviable marriage. The only problem with his perfection is the question of why Giselle is so strongly compelled to hide what's happening from him. She trusts him in every other way, but whether it is a fear of no longer being attractive to him (he does love her hair) or sheer embarrassment, this she keeps from him as long as possible. (I think I would have enjoyed it if when she finally does tell him he simply said "I know.")
There were a few small typos (how funny is it that every time I type the word "typos" I spell it wrong?), but otherwise the writing is sound as a bell. My only other criticism would be that Julian's brogue might be a little extreme. I'm no expert (though I'd like to be), but I don't think some of the letters that are dropped need to be dropped; much better critics than I have pointed out how a little dialect goes a very long way, and it's a point well taken.
I've probably always been a little smug about my hair; it used to be about three feet long, and it's always been thick – great genes from my mother's side of the family. The idea of it coming out in clumps brings a visceral horror. It doesn't matter that it's not life-threatening or even physically debilitating – it's an integral part, detaching. This has to be an invaluable comfort to anyone going through what Giselle is going through.