FATE BROKE HER HEART …
It’s been ten years since Lucy Carter Maxwell lost her soulmate. Having hidden from love ever since, she’s stunned to find it pulling at her when she discovers an old, forgotten box of Gabe’s photographs.
Desperate to find the hope she has been searching for, Lucy begins to unravel the secrets that Gabe left behind.… CAN NEW LOVE SET HER FREE?
The journey leads Lucy to Italy and into the path of Dr. Dax Armstrong. The pain in his sad, intense eyes, matches Lucy’s own – his touch reignites her in a way that no one has since Gabe.
Afraid of these newly awakened parts of herself, Lucy can feel the comfort of her old life tugging at her. But with an earth-shattering secret waiting in the shadows, can Lucy ever embrace love, if she doesn’t embrace the truth?
Second book of the series…
… which can be read as a stand-alone if you miss the fact that it is a sequel. Like I did. “The Light We Lost” apparently tells us about Lucy’s relationship with Gabriel, while this second book is set ten years after his death. As I was not aware of another book in this series until the very end of the book (my research for this review), I loved the concept of a past love that is still with you so many years after the loss of it. We do not need to know every detail of it to feel how close Lucy felt to Gabriel and how her every action is still influenced by her experience with him. More than that, the book is narrated through her talking to Gabriel in her mind and taking him along to all her new encounters and adventures. A beautiful tribute to loss and love.
Too late for love?
At one point throughout the book, Lucy wonders if she had the love for her life, even two if counting her ex-husband, and therefore does not get to love another person again—and be loved by them. She still struggles with loss and the secrets she keeps from her family after not only cheating on her now ex-husband but also receiving and birthing a child from this escapade. In this book, she will deal with these things through her own emotional work as much as friends’ and a new lover’s help. I loved her slow-burn romance with Dax, who hits it off with her quickly, but has to be patient due to her hesitance to accept something new in her and her children’s life.
More than just romance
Lucy prioritizes her family all throughout the book. More than simply a romance book, this story tells of navigating a divorced family and the expectations and responsibilities of a mother. She considers her children and what is best for them in every single of her steps, maybe even to a degree that borders on self-abandonment. Therefore, it was wonderfully moving to see Dax come into her life and look out for her, but also for her friends to encourage her to dare to have a life for herself again. Lucy is only in her 30s but this book speaks of late new beginnings in a beautiful and hopeful manner.
In Conclusion,
I did not need to read the first book to dive into this sequel’s plot and feelings. I am nonetheless now intrigued by Lucy and Gabriel’s love story and taken by Jill Santopolo’s manner of narrating Lucy and Dax’s—meaning I will try to go back to the first installment and enjoy it as much as I did with this book. Moving through loss, different kinds of love and friendship, parenthood and new beginnings, this book evokes plenty of emotions and creates beautiful scenes in our heads.
The author:
Jill Santopolo is the internationally best-selling author of Stars in an Italian Sky, Everything After, More Than Words and theThe Light We Lost, which was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and has been optioned for film. Her books have been translated into more than 35 languages and have been named to the New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Apple, and Indie Bound bestseller lists. She is also the author of the Alec Flint Mysteries, the Sparkle Spa series, and the Follow Your Heart books. Source