Book Review - So many men, so little time

Saffron's Choice is the latest of three novels by Caroline Bell Foster, a British writer of Jamaican parentage who lives in Nottingham, England. The story begins in 'No Worries', an exotic and successful coffee bar, popularly called 'Lucas' place' after the young, handsome Italian owner.

Early on, we meet the three principal characters - Saffron Noble, a gorgeous, polished young woman who is also successful in business. Saffron considers Lucas her best friend. Cassidy, the third person, is her friend from childhood days, who is going through deep emotional pain.

Each of the characters has heavy emotional problems. Saffron has a long-distance romance with a boyfriend, Roderick, in Jamaica. The only thing is, she has not seen him for four years! Cassidy is making herself physically sick by fretting and worrying over her baby boy, Billal, who her lover, Tarif, snatched from her when the child was a few months old. He took the child back to his homeland, India, some 11 years ago. Cassidy is obsessed with finding her child.

'Fiery desire'

Lucas, on the other hand, is fighting hard to "tame the fiery desire that burns inside him" for his friend Saffron.

On the same night we meet the three main characters, the burning desire that Lucas felt for Saffron gets out of control and, in a moment of passion, he breaks down "the platonic barriers that had kept their relationship clean, solid and pure".

What follows after that night is a roller-coaster ride for the main characters as Saffron and Lucas become lovers, Roderick turns up unexpectedly from Jamaica and Cassidy relentlessly pursues her dream to go as far as India to find her son.

Into the mix comes Lucas' fabulously rich and domineering silver-haired father who Lucas had not seen for over 10 years. He turns up at the coffee bar in Nottingham and reveals to Lucas that he is next in line to the Conti-Bridgewater Empire of banks, hotels and electronics.

Lucas hates the man and wishes to have nothing to do with him. But the elder Conti 'dies' in a car accident the very next day and Lucas is obliged to move from Nottingham to London to look after the empire.

Lucas and Saffron's see-saw romance, which was already on shaky ground, comes to a screeching halt as Lucas, at very short notice, has to take over running his father's conglomerate.

Even with the sudden transition he had to make from his coffee bar in Nottingham to London, Lucas finds time to assist Cassidy in her plans to hire a new investigator to locate her son.

Disastrous meeting

Saffron makes several attempts to reach Lucas by phone, but all to no effect, so she goes to his office in London to see him face to face. Their meeting is disastrous.

Confused and angry, she sells her business, 'The Mother Lode', leases her flat and takes off for Jamaica where, in the author's words, "Nothing can compare to the vibrancy of the island. Everything was sharp, bright and poetic."

Both Roderick, who by that time is studying in England, and Lucas, who unexpectedly discovers Saffron's location, find her living in deep rural Jamaica - the three meet unexpectedly at her Portland cottage.

The story gathers momentum as Lucas tries to understand the reason Saffron left England and Roderick, on the other hand, explains his reasons for carrying on the long-distance relationship with her - a 'romance' that could never get off the ground.