BOOKLIST: Hyde, Catherine Ryan. Love in the Present Tense. May 2006. 240p. Doubleday/Flying Dolphin, $21.95 (0-385-51800-5).
Pearl was only 13 when she got pregnant and gave birth to her baby boy, Leonard. It was also on her thirteenth birthday when she killed her baby’s father. She spends the next five years moving from place to place, trying to keep under the radar of the police and Leonard safe. But her past eventually catches up to her. Forced by a cop to confront what she did, Pearl leaves Leonard with the one person she trusts, her neighbor Mitch. Only Pearl never comes back. Without a parent, Leonard looks to Mitch to take care of him, and Mitch finds that taking care of Leonard is the best thing in his life. Pearl, Leonard, and Mitch each tell their versions of the story, and what unfolds is an exploration of the meaning of family and whether the bonds of love can truly transcend time and space. Although the switching back and forth between narrators occurs too often—every couple of pages—Hyde tells a rich and engaging story through the voices of three very extraordinary people. —Carolyn Kubisz

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Uniting vivid, needy characters in unlikely relationships is Hyde's specialty (PAY IT FORWARD), evidenced in her emotional sixth novel.  Featuring a tough teen, her sweet son, and their flawed but sincere neighbor, each take turns narrating their story in fresh, distinct voices.  At thirteen, Pearl lives with a kind prostitute while her mom copes with a crippling drug addiction.  In one tragic night, Pearl gets herself pregnant and accidentally kills the father, a police officer; on the run, Pearl decides that she and her son, Leonard, wll share a "forever love," an unbreakable and unconditional bond.  Pearl protects Leonard like a lioness, shielding him from the dangerous world and the tragic story of his father.  At five, Leonard -- smart, loving and saddled with a degenerative eye disease -- stays with 25-year-old next-door neighbor Mitch while Pearl works; when Pearl disappears, Mitch must assume responsibility for Leonard -- not easy to do while maintaining a home business and an affair with a client's wife.  Despite Pearl's mysterious departure, Leonard stays true to her "forever love," denying that he has been abandoned.  Mitch isn't so sure, and when Leonard begins having his own doubts, they both must re-examine their beliefs.  Hyde excels in sentimental, utopian storytelling, and though it isn't as sharp a hook as "paying it forward," her story of a love that transcends time, place and human weakness is a worthy successor."

KIRKUS REVIEWS
"The author of PAY IT FORWARD proves she has some staying power with this sad-funny love triangle of neighbors and caregivers who alternately tell their story over the course of 25 years.  The actions of a brave 13-year-old part-black, part-Korean girl named Pearl Sung get the narrative moving with a bang.  Waylaid by a cop who seduces her, she shoots him dead with his own gun after they have sex, and the ramifications will haunt her the rest of her life.  Pregnant by the officer, she has to raise a visually handicapped boy with asthma, Leonard, who will take up his own side of the story once Pearl disappears from his life at age five.  Leonard is left largely in the care of downstairs neighbor Mitch Devereaux, a 25-year-old computer programmer running his own software company out of his apartment.  Mitch is sympathetic to Leonard's solitary plight, and cares for him for years before he can be adopted by the kindly couple Jake and Mona; to flesh out the unorthodox household, the mayor's wife, Barb, a fetching older woman, appears irregularly to sleep with Mitch, while Mitch maintains the mayor's computer system during his congressional campaigns.  Each of the protagonists, Pearl, Leonard and Mitch, take turns telling their sides of the story, and as they age, the denouement is satisfyingly suspenseful.  Sparked with humanity and a lively vernacular."