This review contains spoilers.
Trusting Tomorrow opens with Logan hunkered down in her car, not quite ready to face her father’s empty house. Having never met Logan, Brooke calls the police to check on a suspicious person parked out front of the duplex where she lives with her grandparents. Much to her mortification, Brooke learns that the lurker is a longtime family friend and daughter of their recently deceased next-door-neighbor, John Swift.
Death, doubt, and dark family secrets influence the emotionally topsy-turvy course of events. Logan and Brooke are almost always at loggerheads, following a well-trod path through the land of romantic fiction. Every encounter ends up souring, no matter how well it starts off. They are constantly bickering, second guessing, and apologizing. Yet, Brooke and Logan find each other strangely magnetic, an instant attraction that they don’t understand and can’t pull away from.
Their contrasts are front and center from the very start of the story. One cares for the deceased and the family and friends of the deceased; and the other cares for the living. I enjoyed the fact that Logan is a mortician, an unusual occupation among the romances I’ve read. As a fan of the HBO drama Six Feet Under, I enjoyed how the story explored the effects that living with death had on Logan and Jack, as well as on the surrounding community.
Logan Swift, small town mortician and self-avowed single, takes the helm of the family business, the Swift Funeral Home, following the sudden death of her father. She runs from commitment, preferring one night stands to a long-term relationship. No woman, aside from family and friends, has ever crossed the threshold to her apartment above the funeral parlor. Logan doubts that any woman would be interested in her as a long-term partner if they knew what she did for a living and where she lived. However, she’s just as wary of women who want to date morticians.
Brooke Collier, a registered nurse, is newly arrived in town to help care for her ailing grandfather. She relocates for more than just the love of her grandparents. Several months prior, she found herself suddenly single when Wendy, her girlfriend of three years, moved out without warning. The bitter revelation of the reasons behind their breakup leaves Brooke wanting nothing to do with love or relationships.
Friends and family conspire to unite Logan and Brooke in happy-ever-after. Jack Swift, Logan’s younger brother, is home for the funeral of their father. The two siblings share a close bond in which teasing and telepathy (well, not really, but they know each other well enough to finish each other’s brain waves, sentences, and sentiments) play a large part. As Jack strives to make peace with life’s disappointments, he seems determined to make sure Logan experiences the same kind of peace.
Brooke’s grandparents and other extended family also nudge her towards Logan at every turn.
My main concern with Trusting Tomorrow is that it’s stuck in a kind of Ground Hog’s Day repetition, with both women repeating the same choices. After the events of the story and the protagonists’ behavior, I wasn’t convinced of the inevitability of their connection as friends and lovers. Overall, while this novel isn’t high on my list of contemporary romances, it may satisfy readers who enjoy small town settings, close-knit families, and uncommon occupations.
