As with all of the Stewart Reality books, Escalation Clause focuses on the relationship of one couple, in this case Maureen (Mo) Jack's sister and Rafe Inez the sexy soccer coach we saw briefly in book 3, however the story is also filling you in on all the background characters from previous books.

We go back to when Maureen and Brandis first fall in love and see his death through her eyes. We then follow Maureen on the heart wrenching journey of recovering and moving forward after losing a spouse. We are there when she meets Rafe and the ups and downs that happen while she is trying to accept her survivors guilt.
However as much of the book is devoted to filling in areas of previous books that may have been sort of time traveled across in order to tell the story of the primary characters.

We are there while Jack and Sara work out the problems that arise in their marriage, we also see the rocky road by Rob and Lila travel to become a couple. We are shown a glimpse at Sara and Blake's parents early marriage and even a peek into the future with the children of the characters.

This is the latest in the Stewart Reality series and I loved it as much as the others in the series I am also torn, I wish that more time had been spent on Maureen and Rafe and their relationship. I almost feel like this could have been two books one telling the story of Maureen and Rafe and another entire book just filling in the blanks from previous books. So while this is another fantastic book from Liz Crowe the story of Maureen and Rafe is one of the weakest so far. Still with all that being the case I loved it and will be looking forward to book 7.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review