Review: Emotional and tragic but ohhhh so good...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 23, 2013
When you read a Leanne Davis book you know it’s going to be something so painfully emotional, and tragic, that your stomach feels knotted while reading it. When I saw she had a new series coming out I was both happy and scared at the same time. Her characters go through feelings of guilt, sadness and devastated sympathy before getting there happy ending and as a reader you are along on that emotional journey from beginning to end. This is the first book in a 3 book series. The series is based loosely around the members of a band called Zenith.The heroine Joelle Williams is married to the lead singer. Joelle lost both her parents for different reasons and by high school she was in foster care and alone. When she met Rob Williams she was just 19 and lonely with no sense of self and had radically changed her appearance. They married shortly after and now 4 years later she is attending Al-Anon meetings and trying to stay afloat living with an alcoholic husband and the band members in squalor. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. She’s become a doormat to her husband who controls her emotionally but she is so scared of being alone she puts up with everything until she runs into the older brother of a childhood friend at the Al-Anon meetings. At first she is embarrassed for him to see what she has become and figures he is going to judge her based on her hair, tattoos and piercings. But he soon becomes her lifeline and the only friend she can depend on when things get worse with Rob.Nick Lassiter was such a uniquely written character. From the start he never saw what was on the outside of Joelle. He only saw what was on the inside and he knew she needed saving. Most of that comes from having to be the man in his family from the age of 13 when his father suddenly died leaving a grieving mother with many daughters left to raise. Nick appointed himself as Noelle’s rock until she was able to be strong for herself. This was not an easy or fast path as Joelle had so many issues along with a husband she had walked away from but was hesitant to completely let go of.Joelle’s journey back to herself was not an easy one and at times was very painful to watch as she would move a couple steps forward then she would ultimately find something to sabotage it and take a few steps back. Even though Joelle wasn’t the addict here she still had to go through the steps to start making the right decisions for herself so she could start a new life.We were introduced to all the characters who will be in the next two books in this book and I for one cannot wait to read their stories.