Tuesday 12 February 2013

Book ~ Love Water Memory (2013) Jennie Shortridge

From Goodreads ~ Waking up knee-deep in the San Francisco Bay with no understanding of how she got there, thirty-nine-year-old Lucie Walker discovers she has no memories of her past or her loving fiancé, Grady. 

After being diagnosed with a rare form of amnesia, Lucie returns to her previous life with Grady in Seattle only to find evidence of the “old” Lucie - an insecure and shallow personality she no longer recognizes, or wants to. Like a detective, the new Lucie attempts to find the path from past to present, only to remember shocking pieces of a dark childhood that tempt her to run away from everything all over again. 

To complicate matters more, she finds herself falling in love with her fiancé and his big close-knit clan of a family just as he seems to be falling out of love with her. But as Lucie begins to open up to the world around her, she realizes that she can build a future as the woman she wants to be, rather than the one her past dictated.

Lucie is found in the San Fransisco Bay in a business suit standing in the water up to her knees.  She has no idea who she is or how she got there from her home in Seattle (13 hours away).  She has been gone for more than a week and her fiancé, Grady, has been doing all he can to find her.

Grady takes her to their home but discovers Lucie has changed.  No longer does she care about power suits, wrinkle cream or hiding her freckles.  She's saddened to discover that her neighbours hate her.  She fears that Grady loves the Lucie she was but not the Lucie is now.  Grady, though, is trying to protect Lucie from her past, especially from the explosive fight they had just before she disappeared.  When Lucie discovers she has an aunt Helen, she learns about her childhood and it's no wonder she has amnesia.

This is the first book I've read by this author and I enjoyed it.  I liked the writing style.  Though written in third person, each chapter is focused on one of the characters.

Lucie sounded like a cold bitch before she had amnesia ... I liked her a lot better afterwards.  It sounds like Grady let her walk over him.  We discover that both Grady and Lucie are running from their past.  Grady's father died when he was young and he was raised by his overprotective mother and sisters.  Lucie's parents died when she was young and she was raised by her mother's sister, Helen, and Helen's husband, Edward.  She moved out as soon as she graduated from high school.

I could feel Lucie's struggle to find herself and it was interesting to go along for the ride as she gets to know herself again.

I received a copy of this ebook at no charge in exchange for my honest review.

No comments: