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Everything We Keep - Kerry Lonsdale

Everything We Keep: A Novel by [Lonsdale, Kerry]


Description

A luminous debut with unexpected twists, Everything We Keep explores the devastation of loss, the euphoria of finding love again, and the pulse-racing repercussions of discovering the truth about the ones we hold dear and the lengths they will go to protect us.
Sous chef Aimee Tierney has the perfect recipe for the perfect life: marry her childhood sweetheart, raise a family, and buy out her parents’ restaurant. But when her fiancé, James Donato, vanishes in a boating accident, her well-baked future is swept out to sea. Instead of walking down the aisle on their wedding day, Aimee is at James’s funeral—a funeral that leaves her more unsettled than at peace.
As Aimee struggles to reconstruct her life, she delves deeper into James’s disappearance. What she uncovers is an ocean of secrets that make her question everything about the life they built together. And just below the surface is a truth that may set Aimee free…or shatter her forever.


Review

I was invited to read this book and the title didn't really speak to me so it's slipped a long way down my TBR pile. How I wish I had read it sooner, the title belies a great story.

I found it a little bit of a slow starter. Don't get me wrong I was enjoying reading it, I just wasn't sure where it was going. The book begins with Aimee at the funeral of her fiance, on the day they would have been married. Even the flowers are the ones meant for the wedding as her MIL to be doesn't want them to go to waste! At this point I began to wonder if her future MIL had murdered her son just to stop him marrying someone she clearly didn't feel any empathy for.

As Aimee is leaving the funeral a physic approaches her and tells her that her fiance is still alive! The book then flip flops through Aimee trying to move on, and flashbacks to how they met with an insight into their early lives. We then get a little bit of hint of a romance and Aimee gets to open her own coffee shop in the meantime. 

Part two of the book, and it's now two years since her fiance died, and she has more than a hunch that he is still alive. This is the part of the book that I can imagine some people will find hard to believe. But they say truth is stranger than fiction and I certainly was reading it with incredulity - not at the story but at how it was unfolding, because I never saw it coming. This was the part where I began to race through the book as I really needed to know what the hell was going on.

The writing is easy to read and my only criticism is that Aimee is a little fey in her behaviour, which at times I found annoying. The book does tie off nicely at the end but then there is another twist. Luckily for me the sequel is out and I'm off to read it now. It's called Everything We Left Behind.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for an ARC for review.

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