Jan Kagan had the best of all worlds, or so it seemed to all those in the modest Midwest community in which she lived with her businessman husband of 16 years, Chris, and their two teenaged children.  At 37, and still very attractive, she was a devoted wife, mother, neighbor and friend.  College-educated, sensitive and articulate, she had a passion for abandoned pets and worked every Thursday as a volunteer at a humane animal shelter. Proper, prim and Protestant, in so many ways, then, she epitomized the stereotypical happy and content middleclass housewife, seemingly content to live out all the days of her life in patterns redolent of the American Heartland.

But there was another side to Jan, an inarticulate and faintly guilty sense that life had to hold more.  And when a professional stage actor with the savoir faire of an aging matinee idol came into the shelter and adopted a cat of which she was extremely fond, a door began to open and through it, she found herself reluctantly drawn.  He claimed only to be new in town and looking for friendship so after rejecting him several times, she agreed to join him for coffee after her Thursday shift at the shelter.  

Thus began an adventure which threatened to destroy her well-ordered world and visit heartache on all those who knew and loved her.

At first glance, perhaps the essence of classic Harlequin romances, several things distinguish “Strays” from most novels its kind.

It is a tightly written story which introduces the protagonist, her world and the actor with whom she becomes involved all within the first several pages.  The plotting is seamless and flows effortlessly from one scene to another, with very little deviation from the perspective of Jan Kagan herself.  The actor is particularly well drawn and realistically so.  A charming man on the surface, we gradually discover that his is a soul in anguish; that for all of the dissipation in his life, he strives for a kind of purity he has never truly known, but which he finds in Jan, even as he ruthlessly seeks to seduce her.

J. Lang Wood has assiduously avoided the clichés which so often compromise a novel of this kind, particularly for those who, like this reviewer, are not a fan of the genre.  This is not the fare of soap operas but instead, a chronicle of real human beings, as flawed as any, and at times, as noble and as self-sacrificing. 

Most of all, it is a painfully honest look at Middle America and a truly unforgettable read.   ________________________________________________________________                                                                                                   

authorhouse, $17.99.  Also available at Author’s Home Page and at Amazon.com