The Shadow and the Star (4th time around)

Or is it the 5th? I can't remember.

I think this may be the one romance I reread that I reread every word, and I get more out of it every time I read it. This time, the subplot with Dojun and the Japanese sword was a lot clearer to me. I think I fully understood it. I think.

What really struck me as I was reading this book this time was that Samuel was remarkably well functioning considering his early childhood. It's not that I don't believe that there are kids who are absolutely resilient, but I've been doing so much research on FAS/FAE, RAD, attachment and bonding, and sensory integration disorders that I had to actually make up a background for Samuel to explain how he could be as undamaged as he was (not that he didn't have countless emotional issues; it's just clear that he had learned how to bond and that his cognitive development hadn't been arrested by neglect). I decided that he'd had a family until he was about three or four and then he had been orphaned and subsequently sold to the child procurers. This would explain his successful relationship with his new family and his extreme intelligence - he had that essential one-on-one contact during those critical first years.

Okay, that might seem a little obsessive (who cares about the infantile cognitive development of a fictional character?) but sometimes you have to make up your own pieces of the puzzle in order to be able to enjoy the picture in its entirety.