Spring Rain

August 1, 2001
\deflang1033\pard\plain\f3\fs24" Spring Rain\plain\f3\fs24, the first entry in Roper's Seaside Seasons series, brings Leigh Spenser, a teacher and single mother on the Jersey Shore, once again in contact with her son's father, Clay Wharton. Clay, a career naval officer, has never owned up to fathering his son, Billy, preferring to believe that his one wild night with Leigh demonstrated her promiscuity. Clay is retiring from the navy to tend to his mother and his twin brother, Ted, who is dying of AIDS. Gay characters seldom make an appearance in evangelical fiction, and Roper carefully crafts her disapproval of Ted's lifestyle. Once that's out of the way, she presents him sympathetically and in some depth, even to the point that his fate upstages the nascent romance between Leigh and Clay.

(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)