Tag: book review

Podcast

24: Happy Birthing Person Day! The Left’s Plan to Erase Women

Karen
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Where are all the feminists? I don’t understand how the left can try and redefine the role of women and yet, the feminists are quiet. Why?? Racism is spreading like a cancer and it’s not just whites that are in the crossfires. Biden is increasing the deficit – inflation is inevitable. And as if we’re not segregated enough, now the left wants to segregate the vaccinated from the non-vaccinated – yeah, that will go a long way to unifying people. The book review this week is “In the Dark” by Loreth Anne White and screw it – I’m wishing all biological women Happy Mother’s Day!
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Book Corner

Story Sentence: An Unfinished Story

Karen

After locking up, Claire climbed into her convertible and drove north, back toward the Don CeSar hotel. David’s novel rode shotgun. 

Story blurb:

A grieving widow and a disenchanted writer form an unexpected bond in a novel about second chances and finding the courage to let go of the past.

It’s been three years since Claire Kite lost her husband, David, an aspiring novelist, in a tragic car accident. Claire finally finds the courage to move on; then she discovers among the remnants of her shattered world her husband’s last manuscript. It’s intimate, stirring—and unfinished. An idea comes to her…What if she can find someone to give David’s novel the ending it deserves?

Whitaker Grant is famous for his one and only bestselling novel—a masterpiece that became a hit film. But after being crippled by the pressure of success and his failed marriage, Whitaker retreated from the public eye in his native St. Petersburg, Florida. Years later, he’s struggling through a deep midlife crisis. Until he receives an intriguing request from a lonely widow. To honor David’s story, Whitaker must understand, heart and soul, the man who wrote it and the woman he left behind.

There’s more to the novel than anyone dreamed. Something personal. Something true. Maybe, in bringing a chapter of David’s life to a close, Claire and Whitaker can find hope for a new beginning.

These two sentences are from chapter three of “An Unfinished Story” by Boo Walker. (First of all, LOVE the author name). 

So, the premise of this reminds me of Verity by Colleen Hoover. Which I liked. Actually, I loved it. I know that book had mixed reviews. But I enjoy the premise of another writer finishing what someone else started. 

This story so far is sad and I hope to God to never experience what this character is going through losing the love her life, (because when we die, Kevin and I will die together – how is that for macabre?) and I’m sure it’s heartbreaking but all of the sadness … I just find myself getting impatient. Okay, we get it, you’re sad. Let’s move on to happier times. 

The story begins with David, Claire’s husband, leaving the house with the promise that he will bring someone to dinner that night. He won’t tell her who it is and he dies without her knowing who it was. So there is that element of mystery. I’m at the part in the story where she is selling their house and she is forced to finally go into David’s study to start clearing it out. David is a writer, or was a writer, he was getting back into it when he died, and he was working on a manuscript that he didn’t want Claire to read until he was finished. 

So now, she has the manuscript but she hasn’t had a chance to read it yet. 

I’m hoping the manuscript has some mystery character, maybe the character that he was going to bring to dinner, or some sort of information that will cause Claire to question whether she knew David or not. 

I’m guessing, by the blurb, that it’s not going to have anything like that and will just be a story where she finds a handsome writer to finish her husband’s story and she ends up falling in love with him, thereby moving on with her life. 

That wouldn’t be a bad story, but I’m hoping for something a bit more dramatic. 

At any rate, my thoughts on this book so far: Meh.

Book Corner

Book Review: Winter’s Curse

Karen

Knowing someone will die is the worst curse…

A bank robbery turns into a blood trail as a pair of unhinged masterminds hack their way through a list of the most notorious US heists. The copycat crimes, emulating famous robberies, escalate as the FBI work with local law enforcement.

But the federal team has problems of its own. Sun Ming, Winter Black’s partner and nemesis, has her own agenda, while Winter can’t keep her mind off The Preacher, the notorious serial killer who murdered her parents and holds the key to finding her missing little brother.

To make matters worse, Winter must attempt to hide her ever growing abilities as the “gift” The Preacher gave her years before turns into a curse that threatens to destroy her, body and soul.

I’m really digging Mary Stone’s work, specifically, the Winter series.

And I just discovered that she has more than one series – it’s now my mission to read every last word of her work.

I really like Winter Black. She has a tough exterior but a caramel filling (soft, but sticky) – when it comes to certain people. I really like how Stone keeps Winter a mystery. Yes, you get to know Winter, but only bit-by-bit. This is my second Winter Black story and though I have a good grasp of Winter’s back story I don’t really feel like I know HER fully – yet. And I like that. It keeps me reading and guessing. She doesn’t seem predictable or stale.

I really like Stone’s style of writing. She writes from several points-of-view which I wasn’t sure I was a fan of, until I read her work. I feel she does a really good job of keeping all of the POV’s separate without getting too sloppy about it and I’m going to try and adopt her style of writing in my April Camp NaNoWriMo project. (Did you realize that’s coming up soon??)

I haven’t really a big fan of multiple POVS, but after watching Sarra Cannon’s YouTube videos and reading Stone’s work, I think I’ve been converted.

I really appreciate the richness and the fullness of Stone’s stories. I appreciate getting the villain’s POV as well as the two men in Stone’s life. I also love we occasionally get The Preacher’s POV as well. And I’m looking forward to reading more about the potential love triangle between Winter, Aiden and Noah.

This cat-and-mouse story had me on the edge of my seat. It was also really cool to read about a female protagonist, antagonist and female competitor – the females had the spotlight in this story and the male characters were more supporting.

It was refreshing. I appreciate strong females in stories. And I think Stone does a really good job of making Winter relatable in her toughness but at the same time, doesn’t make her too soft. This may not be for everyone, but personally, I love it. I find Winter fascinating and I want to know more about her.

The only thing I wished had been different was the fact that we didn’t really find out why the female antagonist felt so compelled to pull off her copycat crimes. Though Heidi was highly intelligent and a complete sociopath, I wanted to know the reason why she spent six long years planning these heists and what the motivation behind her doing so was. Either I missed it, or it wasn’t given to us.

Another fascinating element of Winter’s story is her “gift.’ She has visions that are so strong at times, they knock her unconscious. In addition, she has the ability to see “red” dots whenever there is something evil lurking about which helps her stay on the heels of the bad guys. Why does she have this gift? Will it end up killing her? How is this tied to The Preacher? There are a lot of questions, I’m looking forward to reading more of her story and learning the answers.

In addition, I really thought the relationship between the two criminals in this story was unique and different, too. Heidi blackmails her accomplice into helping her with her heists and again, the significance of her doing that wasn’t made clear. It wasn’t enough to spoil the story for me, sometimes there is no explaining crazy, disturbed people, but it left a small hole in the story that I had difficulty overlooking.

I also really enjoyed the way Stone starts the story – with yet another POV. This one was from one of the victim’s from Heidi’s first crime – the bank heist. Again, an interesting way to start the story and one I fully intend to try in my stories.

If you enjoy the mystery/thriller genre, then I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Mary Stone’s work. You won’t be disappointed.

Book Corner

Story Sentence: The Arrangement

Karen

I now have two sugar daddies (SD) and I’ve learned loads in the past fortnight.

This is the first sentence from chapter 24 from “The Arrangement” by Miranda Rijks

Blurb:

Abi had a secret life. That’s why she had to die.

Grace is living through every mother’s worst nightmare. Her student daughter Abi went away on a dream vacation – and was murdered.

Overwhelmed by grief, and fighting off old demons which have resurfaced, Grace tries to make sense of it – who would want to kill her beautiful girl?

But as she learns more about Abi’s life, she realises she didn’t know her own daughter very well. How did Abi acquire all those designer clothes? And what was she doing on those mysterious trips to the city?

Grace desperately needs to find answers. But soon it becomes clear that someone doesn’t want her digging into Abi’s secret past. Someone who knows how to use Grace’s own weaknesses against her, sending her on a journey to the darkest hell…

My thoughts so far:

This is a classic example of making a character’s life a living hell. Rijks throws everything but the kitchen sink at poor Grace to the point I’m yelling at my Kindle, “Oh come ON.” But here’s the thing, I can SEE every horrible thing happening to Grace actually happen to a terribly unlucky person in real life. This character can NOT catch a break.

The story opens with Abi, on holiday in South Africa, excited to meet a mysterious person. Only, she’s being followed and her mysterious person changes the location from a cafe to a deserted beach. Obviously, the person following her is the person she hopes to meet up with. The chapter ends with that mysterious person stabbing, and killing, Abi.

Grace is a divorced mom of two. Abi is her oldest daughter. She’s a hair stylist just trying to make ends meet. She’s also a struggling alcoholic. When she finds out Abi has died and her local police really can’t  help her since her daughter died on foreign soil she gets lost in her grief and obsessed with trying to find out why Abi was killed.  She stumbles into a few secrets and Grace is left wondering if she really knew anything at all about her daughter.

To top it off, the more she discovers, the more someone doesn’t want her to find out the truth. And because she started drinking again, her friends and the authorities think what is happening to her is a figment of her alcoholic brain and don’t believe her. I won’t spoil it for anyone who wants to read it, but suffice it to say, Rijks really makes Grace suffer. I’m currently at the lowest of the low for Grace and I’m wondering how she is going to pull herself out of this.

I also have a pretty good idea who the killer is.

I’m about 69% done. It’s a pretty good read, if not a bit frustrating, but I admire the way Rijks tortures Grace.

Book Corner

Book Review: The Girl in Cell 49B

Karen

Pre-order on Amazon

Emily Calby disappeared at age twelve, the only survivor of a notorious home invasion. Three years after her terrifying odyssey in The Hiding Girl, she’s safe, living in anonymity with her mentor, ex-gang member Lucas Jackson—before life blows up again on her Sweet Sixteen birthday. Arrested for carrying her birthday gift—an illegal handgun from Lucas—a fingerprint scan shows her to be the missing Calby girl and worse: she’s wanted for murder in another state.

Extradited to a corrupt juvenile prison in the middle of nowhere, Emily struggles to adjust to a new code of survival while battling a vindictive prosecutor willing to resort to any means to convict her. As The Law thwarts her every move, she begins to appreciate its awesome power. She discovers an unused prison law library and buries herself in the books, casting her destiny.

As she fights for her life in court, the dark secrets behind the prison walls close in. Her cellmate, a spookily prescient drug addict, is in grave danger. So is her first love, a gentle boy sentenced to life without parole. Emily’s desperate to help them, but how can she, when her explosive trial brings one new disaster after another? A courtroom thriller like no other.

This was an ARC, (advanced reader copy).

This is the second book in Emily Calby’s story though is easily a stand alone book. I did not read the first book and though I do wonder why the men who raped and killed her mother and sister targeted her family specifically, (was it random?), where her father is, and if the men who did this heinous crime are still alive or still looking for her (and why), Box does a good job of bringing me up-to-date with Emily’s back story without giving away too many details. In other words, I’m curious enough to want to go back and read book one.

Emily has survivor’s guilt over the death of her mother and sister. She ran away but feels like she should have stayed to try and help her family only she knows, realistically, she likely would have died as well. In a lot of ways, she wishes she had. As a result of this horrific experience she has PTSD from the event and she has trouble controlling her anger at times.  Lucas is a gang member and professional forger who takes her under his wing. In a lot of ways, he saved Emily’s life by extending her kindness and guidance when she needed it the most. Lucas’ girlfriend (wife?) is a boxer and teaches Emily how to fight and defend herself. Emily channels her rage and aggression into working out and her body is toned and tough.

Because Emily is hiding, and because she is trying to put distance between her new life and her old life, she goes by Alice Black. Lucas forges documents for her and Emily is Alice for three years. She is now 16 years old. Emily is a walking juxtaposition – she’s tough and will not shy from trouble if she sees someone getting bullied or hurt, and yet, she has a big heart and a lot of compassion. These are unusual traits to package into one character but I think Box does a good job of melting these characteristics into a likeable character.

And that’s just it, I really don’t want to like Emily. She’s a badass that has killed people. True, the circumstances she killed people were due to self defense, still, she killed them. She graduates from self defense to murder and that’s the gray line that Emily struggles with. In a lot of ways, her character reminds me of Dexter from the TV show Dexter. In essence, if you haven’t seen Dexter, he’s a man who has homicidal tendencies. He knows this and recognizes this and yet, he can’t stop himself from killing people. So, he channels this disorder (?) into “good” – he only kills murderers, people who have gotten away with murder and are free to terrorize society. Only, there’s a twist, he’s also a blood-splatter expert who works with police. This juxtaposition is interesting and disturbing. I’ve watched a handful of Dexter episodes and I wanted to like the show but it was too gory for me and honestly, I couldn’t justify the premise, though I certainly could appreciate him getting rid of society’s cancerous people.

Emily is a bit  like Dexter in that she channels her aggression and anger into people who are scum, bad people. I don’t know if anyone can justify murder even if it’s for the “good” of society, but I can certainly understand it if not exactly condone it. As a result, I have mixed feelings about Emily.

She starts the story out being super aggressive but once she is caught and recognized as the girl who escaped the tragedy of her youth, (no one knew what happened to her – she just disappeared), and was thrown in juvenile jail she softens almost to the point where I’m left wondering, “is this even the same girl?” That shift nearly caused me to knock this star rating into a four but again, Box does a good job of “reforming” her to the reader – her actions really were justified, if not disturbing on so many levels.

While in juvenile jail, she befriends her cell mate who she suspects might be a bit clairvoyant and falls in love with Ben, a boy from the neighboring boys’ juvenile jail. Once she learns Ben’s story of why he’s in jail, she begins to question the legality of what happened to him.  After getting into some trouble while in jail, she is given a job in the jail library. She’s saddened to see so many of the girls are not very well educated and are reading below their grade level. She also discovers a little-used law library tucked into the corner with books that have never been cracked open. Emily begins reading about the law in order to try and help Ben but ends up teaching herself more and more in order to try and help her own defense against a murder charge of a man who picked her up while she was hitch hiking.

Emily soon learns that THE LAW pretty much dictates her life and if she has any hope of saving her own life, she has to not only learn THE LAW but to navigate it so she can be her own best advocate. I have mixed feelings about the ending. I can understand Emily’s decision to some extent, but her tendency toward bloodthirst borders on disturbing.

Emily’s journey is far from over and I’m intrigued enough that I would like to read more about her adventures.

In summary:

The Girl in Cell 49B is a story about a girl battling her darkest demons. She has multiple demons: guilt, aggression, and rage. She also has a soft spot for underdogs. Emily has a dark past – her mother and sister were raped and her family home was burned to the ground, nearly killing her in the process. She carries a lot of guilt around because she feels she should have somehow saved her family instead of running away, which ultimately saved her life. After changing her appearance and assuming a new identity and living as Alice for three years, her aggression gets the best of her when she witnesses a nasty bully abusing his girlfriend at a gas station. Unable to stop herself, she walks up to the bully and points a gun in his face. The bully stops his behavior and they drive off but not before the gas station employee reports her to the police and they capture her using the gas station security camera.

This lands her in juvenile jail where the authorities discover, after taking her fingerprints, that she’s the lost girl that disappeared after the horrific home invasion that killed her family all those years ago. She’s also a person of interest wanted in a murder in another state.

Once she’s in juvenile jail, she quickly learns how to navigate the various caste systems and befriends a few underdogs who she feels compelled to try and save. Once her own trial starts, she quickly learns that THE LAW could quickly make or break her and in order to give herself the best chance of surviving a “fair” trial, she begins using the law library in juvenile jail to teach herself how the law works and how she can make it work for her.

This is a story about grit, determination and self-perseverance. This character has had to adapt to a cruel world, learn how to fight and defend herself while somehow managing to keep her sense of self. She’s unusual in that she has a big heart and she can’t stand to see good people being treated unfairly. But she also has a dark side. A side that she finds hard to control and keep under control. Once that dark side of her is unleashed, she can be cruel, dangerous and unpredictable. Emily’s journey is just beginning and she intends to use her new-found interest in the law to help people who can’t help themselves while trying to keep her dark past from destroying her and those she cares about.

Book Corner

Story Sentence: The Girl Beneath the Sea

Karen

The frogs are chirping as the sun sets, casting a pink glow across the sky. I paddle my kayak slowly, watching the mangroves on either side. Occasionally I spot the headlights of a car as it goes down the road to my right.

Those are the first two sentences from chapter twenty-one of “The Girl Beneath the Sea.”

Blurb: Coming from scandalous Florida treasure hunters and drug smugglers, Sloan McPherson is forging her own path, for herself and for her daughter, out from under her family’s shadow. An auxiliary officer for Lauderdale Shores PD, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery. Then Sloan finds a fresh kill floating in a canal—a woman whose murky history collides with Sloan’s. Their troubling ties are making Sloan less a potential witness than a suspect. And her colleagues aren’t the only ones following every move she makes. So is the killer.

Stalked by an assassin, pitted against a ruthless cartel searching for a lost fortune, and under watch within her ranks, Sloan has only one ally: the legendary DEA agent who put Sloan’s uncle behind bars. He knows just how deep corruption runs—and the kind of danger Sloan is in. To stay alive, Sloan must stay one step ahead of her enemies—both known and unknown—and a growing conspiracy designed to pull her under.

My thoughts so far:

Interesting character. Sloan is a tough-as-nails character and I liked her immediately. She has an off again, on again, boyfriend slash baby daddy that she loves but for some reason yet unknown, she doesn’t feel worthy of his love. She has a daughter who is a spitfire and basically a miniature version of Sloan and again, I just like that character arc. I like women who are strong, know their mind and aren’t afraid to get a little bloody. Sloan has a really interesting job, she’s the go-to diver for evidence recovery – meaning, she dives into murky waters and searches for crime-scene evidence and often finds dead bodies in those searches. The book opens with her diving to find some archeological tidbits for her professor and when she hears an ominous splash, she just assumes it’s an alligator and she draws her knife in preparation. She doesn’t panic, she doesn’t squeal like a girl and try and get out, she just braces herself for battle.

I love her job. I don’t recall ever following a character with that type of job before and I’m looking forward to seeing what other treasures she finds throughout the story.

I’m at the part where she discovers money has been missing and/or been stolen from the mob and somehow they think she had something to do with it. They are now starting to hunt her. I also find the legendary DEA agent that turned her uncle in sort of being her unofficial bodyguard an interesting aspect of the story and I’m looking forward to seeing how that relationship pans out.

Run, which is Sloan’s love interest, sort of, has a hot temper and it’s been foreshadowed that he might end up doing something off the cuff that could potentially help, or hurt, Sloan. We’re still in the early stages of the story but basically, we’re trying to figure out who killed Samantha, the girl that made the splash in the water at the beginning of the story. (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t an alligator).  I’m about 35% of the way through the story and I like it so far.

Book Corner

Book Review: The Last Goodbye (ARC)

Karen

Pre-order on Amazon

How can you move on if you can’t let go?

Spencer was the love of Anna’s life: her husband, her best friend, her rock. She thought their love would last forever.

But three years ago, Spencer was tragically killed in an accident and Anna’s world was shattered. How can she ever move on, when she’s lost her soulmate?

On New Year’s Eve Anna calls Spencer’s phone number, just to hear his old voicemail greeting. But to her shock, someone answers…

Brody has inherited Spencer’s old number and is the first person who truly understands what Anna’s going through. As her and Brody’s phone calls become lengthier and more frequent, they begin opening up to each other—and slowly rediscover how to smile, how to laugh, even how to hope.

But Brody hasn’t been entirely honest with Anna. Will his secret threaten everything, just as it seems she might find the courage to love again?

This was an ARC, (advanced reader copy), and I must say, this is the best ARC I’ve read thus far.

If you’ve ever lost someone close to you and had a hard time letting go and moving on, this is the story for you. It’s beautifully written and the characters are thoroughly fleshed out so that I was fully invested in both Anna and Brody’s journeys by the end.

I admit, I’m brutally honest in my reviews, and I will be with this one, too, so trust me when I say, this is worth the read.

Anna was married to Spencer, he was the love her life. They had been married a few short years before tragically, Spencer is hit by a drunk driver and killed. Anna struggles with his death and doesn’t know how to move forward, she’s stuck on a hamster wheel of grief and she doesn’t know how to get off and when she has a chance to get off, her grief and guilt keep her there. This story is not only about Anna, but about Anna’s relationship with her best friend, Gabi, and struggling to hold on to a relationship with her in-laws. So I appreciated the fact that the story was more than just Anna’s struggle but included her struggles with her friendships and extended families and finding a new normal within her sad little world.

I thought Brody’s introduction to the story was terribly clever. I’ve always thought, and even encouraged, people to get to know one another sight unseen – then you have no choice but to get to know the person before allowing the external package to influence your impressions. And once Brody was introduced, I wanted to know more about him immediately, not only because he was willing to listen to Anna, a perfect stranger, and her grief but because the author does a great job of surrounding Brody with mystery that I was dying to know what event caused him to be a recluse and afraid to be around people.

Gabi is the requisite breath of fresh air. Her concern for Anna is genuine and I admired her attempts to get Anna to break free of her zombie state and start living life again. I think the story would have been too depressing and sad without Gabi’s interventions and I appreciated Gabi’s persistence and hard work to look out for Anna. Everyone should have a Gabi in his/her life.

Jeremy is a man she meets while taking salsa lessons (one of Gabi’s many attempts to get Anna out into real life again) and she’s instantly attracted to him. But with that interest comes the guilt and she fights the attraction for quite a while. She knows she’s physically attracted to him but she can’t help but compare him to Spencer and that guilt sabotages any relationship strides she might make. I appreciated the fact that Anna didn’t immediately fall in love with Jeremy as that would have somehow diluted Anna’s sorrow and made her struggle to love again seems frivolous. But her journey with Jeremy was necessary because it gave her an opportunity to grow into the person she needed and wanted to be.

Anna’s relationship with her in-laws was an interesting aspect of the story. I found myself getting a little impatient with Anna’s willingness to endure her mother-in-law’s (MIL) coldness but I understood her need to remain a part of the life she had before Spencer’s death. Her MIL is really struggling with her son’s death and she partially blames Anna. They have bi-weekly luncheons where Anna, her in-laws and Spencer’s brother and his wife get together to remember Spencer. They talk about him and routinely flip through photo albums of various stages of Spencer’s life in an attempt not to forget him.

This is a part of the story that I struggled with. Not with Anna’s motivations, but rather, with her maintaining her relationship with her in-laws. I confess, I’ve never lost anyone super close to me. I’ve been very fortunate, thank God. So reading about Anna’s guilt, though touching and poignant, I had a hard time relating to her struggles, though I could certainly understand her journey. I guess, what I’m trying to say is, would most people, do most people, maintain a relationship with their by marriage family if the link to that family is missing? I can see it continuing shortly after the death, you’re all grappling to come to terms with the tragedy and helping one another through the loss, but would one expect to keep that closeness after three years? The time frame almost seemed too long to me – the fact that Anna was having such a hard time coming to terms with what happened, her insistence on keeping her relationship with her in-laws seemed ….. overkill. Then again, can one put a time stamp on grief? I know everyone deals with grief in different ways and everyone’s journey is different, there’s definitely not a set template that one must follow when dealing with the death of a loved one, but judging by the intensity of Anna’s grief, I think the story might have been more … impactful if Spencer had only been dead say … a year?

Again, I don’t have any experience to say whether one would most likely, or should most likely, have that much grief after three years but I did feel a little impatient with the intensity of Anna’s grief she maintained for so long. I can’t imagine how exhausting that must have been for her, and for the people around her.

I think Anna’s determination to hold on to her relationship with her in-laws is what truly holds her back from moving forward. I do wonder if her reaction to seeing Brody would have been so dramatic if she hadn’t maintained that connection. To me, it almost stunted her growth and perhaps that was the reason she was still so stuck in her grief after three years.

And speaking of when Anna finally meets Brody – her reaction was disappointing. I lost a little respect for Anna at that point and I felt she reacted childishly. My sympathies definitely shifted to Brody though perhaps that was the author’s intention. Again, I feel like Anna’s insistence to hang on to the past and build some sort of close relationship with her in-laws stunted her emotional growth and that would somewhat explain her reaction when seeing Brody. I get why the author did that, but the story, in my opinion, was near perfect until that scene. I get that Lucas likely wanted to toss in a surprise, and she certainly did, and I wasn’t exactly expecting a happy ending at that point, but Anna’s reaction was not only the last thing I expected, it was the least desirable scenario. But let’s be honest, people are flawed, imperfect and unpredictable. Who’s to say something like that wouldn’t happen in real life?

Regardless, that part of the story left a bitter taste in my mouth after being used to chewing something sweet but it wasn’t a big enough deal to make me dislike the story, overall.

I also found it interesting that the lead character, Anna, grew much more quickly than the secondary character, Brody. It was as if the story started as Anna’s story but ended up being Brody’s story by the end. I thought that was an interesting twist.

In summary:

The Last Goodbye is a story of loss, grief, depression and the power of human connection. It’s been three years since Anna lost the love her life, her husband Spencer. He was killed by a drunk driver while running an errand for Anna. The story centers around Anna’s depression and her inability, or unwillingness, to move on with her life. Anna’s best friend, Gabi, tries hard to maneuver her friend out of the depression stage of grief but for every triumph her mother-in-law succeeds in sucking her back into the shadows of sadness. She knows she needs to move on, but she can’t let go of her guilt long enough to give herself a chance to move past on.

On New Year’s Eve, in sheer desperation and loneliness, she dials Spencer’s number to listen to his voicemail message and is shocked when she hears a male stranger’s voice pick up. At first, she thinks it’s Spencer’s ghost come back to haunt her, but she soon realizes that, in her grief, she forgot to pay Spencer’s phone bill and the phone company had closed the account and had given the number to someone else. Unbeknownst to her, the man on the other end of the line is just as lonely and sad as she is and together, they form a precarious and curious bond. Anna continues to call the number and the man continues to pick up, to listen and offer her advice and they build an unusual friendship.

Gabi, in an attempt to help her friend to start living life again, signs them up for a salsa class and Anna meets Jeremy. She’s surprised that she finds him attractive and she tentatively tries to build a relationship with him but she can’t get past the notion that “he’s not her Spencer.” The relationship dies before it’s given life but the experience teaches Anna that she’s capable of living a normal life, however that may look for her.

Anna continues to maintain a relationship with Spencer’s family though in a lot of ways, her desperate attempt to keep them in her life prevents her from moving forward and she continues to struggle to keep Spencer alive in her memory but desperately searching for normalcy.

Though the story moves slow at times, I feel it’s necessary to show the reader the importance of coming to terms and dealing with various degrees of grief and depression. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that has had trouble navigating their own difficult journey with the death of a loved one. Lucas does a really good job of exploring and processing the stages of grief, specifically depression, guilt and the complexity of living one’s life and moving on from a personal tragedy.

The characters are well rounded and the story is beautifully written. I appreciated Lucas’ attention to Brody’s story and dealing with the aftermath of his personal tragedy. In a lot of ways, this story begins as Anna’s story and ends completing Brody’s story. It’s a lovely twist and I would highly recommend this book if you’re looking for a story that deals with love, loss and new beginnings.