Bend in the Road

Nicholas Sparks said in one of his first interviews, after his debut novel THE NOTEBOOK far exceeded the minimal sales it was originally expected to make, that he wrote "easy-to-read" romances destined for as large a reading contingent as possible. Surely A BEND IN THE ROAD, his latest, will not disappoint his legions of fans. But if Sparks was hoping to gain some ground in the world of literary fiction, he needs to try harder.

Miles's wife is dead --- his blessed, perfect, All-American PTA mom of a wife --- hit-and-run down while jogging at dusk one fateful night. The circumstances surrounding her death are still suspect, and Miles is trying to figure this out while also attempting to maintain as normal an existence as possible for his young son, the lovable Jonah. Jonah, however, has not taken his mother's demise lightly and is doing very poorly in school. Enter Sarah Andrews, the lovely single teacher, who offers to help Jonah academically and, eventually, help Miles sexually and emotionally. Miles and Sarah are deeply in love (isn't everybody in a Nicholas Sparks book?) yet their future together may be torn asunder by an evil secret. Will love conquer all? You won't find out until the last line of the book...

Or, if you're me, you will have figured out this plot as soon as these two lovebirds meet. Clearly, there is supposed to be a murder mystery underlying this tale of love after (someone else's) death, but it was so obvious, so much something I have seen on "Days of Our Lives" a million times, that what little interesting story there was here was ruined for me by Sparks's hackneyed plotting. The clues are so obvious that