In the powerfully romantic yet rigorously analytical Love, Again, Sarah Durham is very much the "glue" that holds the story together. The other characters relate to Sarah in a sort of interconnected web. From the beginning she is an unwilling participant in love, almost a victim, protesting vigorously to herself as she falls deeper and deeper into her obsessive state. What saves her is the keen quickness of her mind, her ability to analyze and find meaning in life's situations, and even her wry sense of humor: "Ah me," she says to herself, "my sweetly fractured heart that aches gently like a rheumatic knee with the approach of bad weather." Assets like humor and strength of mind are the fruits of maturity, and in fact it is the perspective gained from years of experience which keeps Sarah from being destroyed by her passion like Stephen.

As well, Sarah...