From This Day On
Janice Kay Johnson

Genre:
Contemporary
Heat Level: Mild/Sensual
Rating:

A new beginning…from this day on

Jakob Nilsson has tried to keep his distance from Amy. Like a forbidden temptation, he's always known his weakness where she's concerned. Then an unexpected weekend brings them together. Despite the torture of being so close to her, Jakob is glad he's there…especially when the opening of a time capsule reveals a confession that upends Amy's world. Nothing is the way it was.

But that revelation also means the barriers between Jakob and Amy are gone. Finally he's free to pursue the woman who has always fascinated him. The challenge now is to convince her to look beyond their past. And to consider a future that includes him.

Review

What I loved best about this book is how adroitly Janice Kay Johnson avoids the yuck factor in getting this couple together. Which isn’t an easy thing to do when you think about their circumstances.

Although this isn’t mentioned in the blurb, the fact that Amy and Jakob are siblings isn’t a spoiler. At least she thinks they’re half-siblings. Jakob has had an inkling for the longest while that they aren’t actually related.  When they discover they are not, Jakob is relieved, happy. His guilt, his shame is that he’s had “unsisterly” feelings for Amy since he was a teenager. The news that they aren’t related helps to ease those feelings he’s been carrying around for decades. But the emotional toil the unraveling of her mother’s past and the identity of her biological father is a real roller-coaster ride of emotions.

To some degree, From This Day On could have been a women’s fiction novel. It had that journey to emotional growth and self-discovery elements to it. Amy always felt she never fit in with her family. Her mother wasn’t a caring, loving mother and when her parents divorced when she was six, her father really distanced himself from her. Jakob, “her brother” tormented her relentlessly whenever they saw each other, which was rare after the divorce.

Amy and Jakob have no relationship to speak up as adults until Amy moves to Portland, Oregon to housesit for her mother. There they get together—as you would expect siblings to do. A friendship grows from the discovery that they are not related. Jakob finally has an opportunity to make it more than just a friendship but, as you can imagine, he’s nervous about revealing his feelings to Amy.  

I read this book in one day. It absolutely kept and held my attention. I’m actually surprised that I enjoyed it as much as I did because I usually like my books hotter than this book is. The loves scenes are short and not very detailed but they work for the story and the lack of heat didn’t lessen my enjoyment of Amy and Jakob’s plight.

Jakob is a wonderful hero. Flawed, yes.  And a terrible, guilt-ridden, horror of a teenager to Amy. But I never doubted once how deeply he feels for her now. Did I squirm a bit when I was reading this book? At times I did because at one time in their life they both thought they were half-siblings.  But those were fleeting moments of discomfort. The author does a wonderful job of deconstructing their relationship so I felt that they had essentially grown up estranged from each other and had never formed any kind of familial bond. This made rooting for a romance between them to work essential.

I also loved how Miss Johnson handles Amy’s relationship with her mother, her mother having lied to her for over thirty years about her biological father. There’s no miraculous “fix” at the end that makes things right between them but there is growth on both their parts.

This is purely character-driven story that delivers on all fronts. The characters are wonderfully flawed, human and completely engaging. The story is moving and keeps you turning the pages even when it’s time to sit down for dinner to eat. I was so completely drawn into Amy and Jakob’s lives, I didn’t want my time with them to end.

Reviewed by Beverley