Robyn Sisman, Special Relationship

Special Relationship

Robyn Sisman

Plume, Feb 2007, $14.00

ISBN: 0452288266

In 1992, Jordan Hope runs for the President of the United States, but has one secret that could derail his bid. In 1970, while he attended Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship and played the sax, he met Annie. She was the right woman for him, but she just vanished from his life. Sad, he moved on until he recently began a run for the top office in the world.

However, Anne, a top London literary agent, is happily married with three offspring. She never forgot her first love and is proud of his accomplishments, but even if he was not a media darling, the evidence of their tryst lives with her, her oldest son Tom. However, following a comment related to a photo of a young Jordan that someone mistook as Tom, the lad realizes he could be the American candidate's twin as they look so alike at twenty. He realizes why Jordan sired him and rushes across the Atlantic to meet his biological dad. While the Secret service makes that seemingly impossible, Anne pursues her son and to warn Jordan, using her dying mother as an excuse for saying her goodbyes to her in Chicago.

The obvious Clinton (Bill that is) connection aside, SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP is a delightful contemporary tale that provides a fascinating spotlight on the late 1960s and early 1970s through a filtering look back 1992 "lens." Tom is terrific as he stirs the game to meet and confront his father while Anne tries to prevent a cross-Atlantic incident that would derail her first lover's political ambition. Jordan adds to the mix of the past coming home to roost (along with a couple of other family secrets) as he never forgot his SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP.

Harriet Klausner