SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP – Robyn Sisman

United States and England – 1992

Forty-six year old Jordan Hope is running for president. Married for many years, he still remembers a girl from his past, and the phone call from Annie Hamilton brings back all of the memories. He attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in the late 1960s, where he met Annie, but he went back to America, and she disappeared from his life in 1970. Now, after many years, Jordan receives a phone call from her telling him that Tom, her son, is looking for him, and believes that he could be his birth father.

In an old trunk of his mother’s, Tom finds a picture of his mother with a man he has never seen before, but who looks like Tom. He is shocked. Could this man be his real father? Today Annie is a literary agent, happily married to Edward, with three children; she'd hoped to never revisit the past.

Jordan has mixed emotions and is concerned about the scandal of having an illegitimate son. The presidential election is only six days away. Researching and discovering his illegitimacy, Tom tries to talk to his mother, but she refuses to tell him what happened. Angry and upset, he decides to go to America and find out if Jordan Hope is his real father. Concerned about her son and thinking he is on his way to the United States, Annie calls her old college friend, Rose, for help.

In the fascinating story of SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP, a young woman does some foolish things in her youth, and twenty years later, she looks back, comparing the past and the present. Today, Annie is a responsible adult, a loving wife and mother, but there is a little corner of her heart reserved for Jordan. Her husband, Edward, supports her, but does he know the whole truth? Jordan remembers his experiences at Oxford which all led to where he is today -- running for the presidency of the United States. Several chapters are dedicated to 1969 and the relationships among Annie, Edward, and Jordan during the Vietnam era, when women were high on freedom that they had never experienced before. Readers will see similarities to Bill Clinton in Jordan, who has his weaknesses and his strengths.

Well written and heart-warming, with some wonderful secondary characters to enhance the story, SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP moves along at a good pace. It is a book readers won’t want to put down. Likeable and realistic characters make this book a perfect choice for your spring reading. A Perfect 10.

Marilyn Heyman