Sophie McGraw always believed in fairy tales, having grown up with the belief that love at first sight truly exists. Though her parents died when she was a child, she remembered the love they shared and was fascinated by the story her grandmother told of how they fell in love when first they met. Following her grandmother's death, she met Kevin. They were married a week later, with Sophie believing she was following in her parents' footsteps. Shortly after the marriage, Sophie was made painfully aware that the marriage was a mistake, and she had never loved her husband to begin with. Up until his death eight months later, Sophie kept up the charade of a happy marriage. No one knew the truth about how disastrous her marriage really was. When her husband's best friend, Erik, offers her a shoulder to lean on, she is grateful to him. She is also determined to ignore the attraction she has felt towards him since first meeting him shortly after her marriage. But with their living and working in such close proximity, will Sophie be able to ignore her growing feelings for Erik and keep the secret of her unhappy marriage from him?

Erik Sebastian is a very successful man in his own right, with a prospering advertising business. One of the New York's most eligible bachelors, he is known as a playboy and never has any intention of settling down, thanks to what he witnessed happen to his father following his parents' divorce. Then he meets Sophie, and falls hopelessly head over heels in love at first sight. Alas, she has already been claimed – by his best friend, Kevin. How he wishes he had met her first, that she were his. Guilt, shame and uncontrollable desire turn him into a bigger workhorse than he already is, doubling the hours he puts in at his office. Then the unthinkable happens. Kevin is killed in a car crash, one in which he was to blame; he also took four innocent lives with him. Sophie is now a widow at only twenty-three years of age, to his thirty-five. He sees his second chance, and is determined to do all that he can to get her to fall in love with him. Erik anticipates her reluctance as a result of her love for Kevin and pain over his demise, rather than the determination never to find herself in a bad relationship again. Can Erik persuade Sophie to enter into a relationship with him? Can he get her to trust him enough to tell him the secrets he knows she keeps?

Mary Eason's That's What Friends Are For is a poignant and gut-wrenching love story that will claim your attention and keep it until the very last page. Sophie is a young woman, who has had her ideals cruelly snatched out from under her. Erik is a man hopelessly and unexpectedly in love, doing his best to forge a relationship with a woman he had thought forever lost to him. Both characters keep secrets from one another, even as they fall deeper in love. It is these very secrets that cause them both so much pain and so many misunderstandings. Whilst this makes you want to knock their heads together in exasperation, since you have access to both their emotions and thoughts, it is their behavior that makes this tale the fabulous story that it is. Though in some ways That's What Friends Are For is slightly clichéd, Mary Eason has truly made the telling of this tale her own. Sophie and Erik are fabulously developed characters, who seem real to you and suited to one another. Even secondary characters are very vivid. The emotions and the attraction between the characters are extremely well detailed, and the sexual aspects of the story sizzle on the screen. Love scenes are detailed and fairly traditional, described with tender words rather than coarse or graphic language. That's What Friend's Are For is full of fabulous characters, electric emotions, scarring secrets and tender feelings, making That's What Friends Are For a sure enjoyment to you and a definite keeper for your library. I will be sure to keep an eye out for more from Mary Eason!


Reviewed by: Elizabeth