The Forbidden Brother by Barbara McMahon

This Harlequin Romance, 'The Forbidden Brother' by Barbara McMahon was released in Australia in August 2007. I'm embarrassed I've let some books languish for that length of time on my TBR pile!

The Forbidden Brother is the story of Laura Parkerson and Jed Brodie. Laura owns an art gallery and was engaged to Jed's twin brother, who died three months prior to the start of the story. I'm not often a fan of stories where the heroine ends up with the 'other' brother so rather than for entertainment value, I bought this book as a study in handling comparisons between two men from the perspective of the heroine having cared for one only to then fall hard for the other, and I particularly wanted to see how Barbara handled the issue of those brothers being identical twins. I'm going to review the book on that basis. Perhaps if you're an aspiring writer you might find it interesting from that perspective too.

The Harlequin Romance line is known for its depth of emotion in a tight word length. This book delivers on that promise on every page. The heroine works through the gamut of emotions. I won't give away too much of the plot. Suffice to say she is first shocked to see someone who looks exactly like her ex-fiance, then has to deal with every emotion that follows. Barbara deftly handled the differences between the men, I felt empathetic towards Laura as she came to terms with being attracted to a man who looked exactly like her ex-fiance but in reality was nothing like him at all, and the hero Jed's feelings about his brother were unique and interesting and to me as a reader, unexpected. I learned heaps from reading this skillful book by Barbara McMahon.

In the month of May, the challenge to those reading for the eHarlequin.com readathon is to try to join up one other reader. It's for a good cause so if you are reading and think you might like to join up, check out the details by clicking on the Book Challenge button on the eHarlequin site.

Jennie