Days: A Stirring from Salem

This is my review and partial summary of the newest Sheri Anderson novel using original characters along with Days of Our Lives favorites. If you don’t want to know, don’t read anything after the jump. These books aren’t canon, as things that happen in them don’t match the real Days, but they are entertainingly fun.

In the second novel of the series, the majority of the action takes place in South Africa. The clinic that doctors Bill Horton and Kayla Brady Johnson is featured. We also spend time with Kayla’s husband Steve, their two-year-old son Joe. John and Marlena come to visit too. Characters from the first novel that are only in the book also took part in the story. Charley Gaines the biological daughter of John and Marlena (her tale is in the first book) ends up in Africa as well. Her two non-biological brothers are also referenced. Jackson is engaged to Abigail Deveraux, and Chelsea’s relationship with Max blew apart before the beginning of the story.

The new characters include Scarlet O’Hara (yes like the Gone with the Wind character), who was Jackson’s former girlfriend. Various people who work at the clinic, guests at the hotel in Africa where Marlena and John are staying, and people Charley meets working as a photographer’s assistant like Brendan who becomes Charley’s love interest and Victor, her boss.

Like soap operas, this novel focuses on more than one story that ties together into a larger plot. In the first book, the Gaines family patriarch, who is now dead, was a Bernie Madoff type. His actions influenced what happened all the way on the other side of the world as Bill Horton had invested in his Ponzi scheme. Unfortunately, he lost the money needed to operate the Tom-Ali clinic. Of course, Tom-Ali was named after his parents, Tom and Alice Horton.

That wasn’t the only controversy. One of the workers at the clinic, Cornelius was involved in illegal doings. People were killing rhinos for their horns. Poaching these animals is a real life problem in Africa. So I appreciated the timeliness.

By the end of the book, and due to the strife they went through (don’t want to give that away). Marlena and Charley decided to become like family and not just ignore each other due to their blood bond. There was only one thing in the book that bothered me in that story. There was a reference to the book having a picture of Sami and her three children, well Sami has four living children, so oops on them.

This book had love scenes not for just the younger characters like Abigail and Jackson. Kayla and Steve and Marlena and John were allowed to be intimate. Being married and happy together doesn’t mean you can’t be intimate. Then again both couples didn’t have a perfect life even if they did enjoy New Year’s Eve.

Of course, him being called Jackson and dating Abigail was weird. When I see the name Jackson, first I think of her father Jack. My second connotation is to Abigail’s first cousin, also named Jackson who is Justin and Adrienne’s youngest son. At the end of the book, Jack was in Salem trying to make things right with Jennifer, which obviously is not what is going on in the real world.

If you enjoy Days, and like the characters that are involved in this story it is worth the time to check out this book. I got through it in half a day, so it was a pretty easy read.