Love Slave by Jennifer Spiegel

 

Sybil Weatherfield came to New York to live the kind of life she felt she deserved.  Now, she is thirty and what she thought would happen hasn't.  She is temping for a living, writing a column on an alternative newspaper and she and her friend Madeline live for hitting the clubs at night and doing the things tourists never find out about.  She has a boyfriend she does not love and has just met a guy she wants to be friends with.

Rob is the lead singer in the band she and Madeline follow.  He has been a widower for seven years as his young wife died of a brain tumor a year after they married.  He is known as a player but that's because he cannot move on and the thought of another relationship is more than he can bear.  He is glad to be Sybil's friend and they start to hang out together, each denying the sparks that fly between them.  Will Sybil ever find the life she wants?

This is Jennifer Spiegel's debut novel and I loved it.  She has the characters spot on and her writing about a health scare Sybil goes through rings so true I had to stop for a minute as I've been there and she captured all the feelings that accompany that event.  Sybil wants to be swept off her feet and can't accept that love might be a decision one makes.  Readers will become totally immersed in Sybil and Rob's lives and cheer for them to realize that they are meant to be together.  This book is recommended for readers of women's fiction.