[When We First Met] is plotted on a situation that a less sure hand would reduce to a soap opera. But the award-winning author invests the ordinary people in her story with realism and draws readers into lives tragically altered when Nell Montana is convicted of drunken driving and fatally injuring Gail Pennoyer. Two years later, Gail's sister Jenny, 16, and Rob Montana meet and fall in love, despite their shock at realizing his mother is the object of the Pennoyer family's implacable hatred. Jenny and Rob meet secretly for a time, until he persuades her to introduce him to her parents, an occurrence with shattering results. Mazer adroitly handles ensuing developments and earns one's admiration for making each person's viewpoint understandable and the suffering of all deeply affecting.