Sugar Time by Jane Adams

Publisher: Book Surge Publishing
Pages: 208 (214 - Amazon)

(Release Date: July 2, 2009)

From the Cover: Charlotte "Sugar" Kane hasn't brought in a hit TV show for 20 years. She's about to prove she still can, even if she's an old broad in a youth-obsessed business, when she's blind-sided by a medical malady that could cost her the pilot if anyone knew about it as well as ruin her chance to turn it into a winning series. She manages to keep her secret from the conniving young assistant who wants her show, and even from her grown kids and closest friends. And when she falls in love with Alex Carroll, she can't tell him, either: "What man who's still got what it takes wants a woman with a condition?" But Alex has a secret of his own, and by the time Sugar learns it, she'll have to face the hardest decision of all for a woman of a certain age who gets her last chance at both love and success - and knows that getting one means giving up the other.

Sugar sits watching TV at home wanting for her agent to call when she starts to feel odd. Like an octopus grapping a hold of her middle and squeezing. It could be food poisoning, but what it is a heart attack. Not wanting her neighbors to know, she makes her own way to the hospital. Mustn't let everyone know she's getting older. She hasn't had a hit show in twenty years, but maybe her ship is coming into dock. There's an opportunity here if she doesn't let it slip away.

And to top it all off, her daughter is expecting her first child (Sugar's first grandchild) and she wants her mom to be there. Add in Sugar's health concerns, which she decides her son and daughter don't need to know about, along with the budding of a new romance, and Sugar's plate is full.

Sugar needs the new show if she going to revive her dying career and the new romance if she wants to revitalize her life, but at 50 something, can she keep all the balls in the air? She comes to realize that life has to be worth living, but which is more important, her career or her love?

Sugar Time by Jane Adams was a good read for the lovers of chick lit. It brings many of the concerns that women are having to light, how to balance a career, love life, family. Are you one person or ten, can you be everything that everyone wants you to be? Who will you fail? Sugar's life complicates even more with her health concerns that she's trying to keep to herself. She's discovering what it's like to not be the freshest bloom in an industry that only cares how good your latest project was, and it's been twenty years between hits for Sugar. But it comes down to what she values most, career or everything else. Her career is so demanding that it wants to absorb her life. The stress of health issues, a new love with his own problems, and the needs of her own children all have to be addressed.

I'd like to say that Sugar Time was a fast fun read, and it was fun. Fast it was not. It was thought provoking and, well, let face it, we're all getting older, so it really brings issues into focus that I'd like to ignore. You know, like age, kids that will someday have their own kids, and having time for a life. It address some of the struggles we're all going through whether you're a man or a woman. That made it a hard read. I know it sounds silly to some, but the loss of her pouch, Tory, was almost more than I could take. So, if you want to think about life and where your's is going, this book is for you because, believe me, it will make you think and maybe even re-evaluate what you consider important and what's not. If you'd like more information about Jane Adams or her books, please visit her website.