Review: Lesson in forgiveness!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 30, 2014
4 Fabulous stars!Struggling single Mum Marlene has done the best in life she can for her adorable daughter Nil ever since her father, rockstar Luke Anderson ran away from them a month before Nil arrived.  Marlene is devoted to her daughter and has a fantastically supportive family behind her.  Life is a struggle but you get the impression that she's doing ok and will do anything to keep her and her daughter happy.  She has dreams but these all fell by the wayside when she found herself alone bringing  up baby.Then enters Luke, back in town for the first time in years and with him memories of bad times (as well as the good) that stirs up Marlene's world and threatens to upset the balance of life that she has forged in his absence.Add to the mix a current boyfriend who is offering her the world on a plate and a life away with aspirations of making her dreams come true and you get great story!First of I think my favourite characters in the book is the sweet little Nil and also Grandma and Ted! Hilarious but the old bird is full of wisdom for Marlene and her story within this book is actually pretty sweet too!  Luke and Marlene have a chemistry which shows in the story and the ease in which they fall back into their old roles is quite endearing too.  I love the perspective of this story and initial feeling is that this is promising to be another story about a rocker and his life but there is refreshingly little insight into the rockstar life but a huge contrast in that we get to see just his personal life and his attempts at winning back his family.I was also surprised by the twist in the story that explained a lot into Luke's disappearance and although at one point I was pretty angry when he explains to Marlene why he never made contact for all of the years he has been assent, my heart utterly melted too.  It is a case of don't take things at face value.  I also, much as I wanted to, couldn't blame him too much for the length of time he was away but you are still left wondering just why he left in the first place.After Luke's revelation, you can understand why Marlene makes her decision as she does and I can honestly say it is a really sweet story although I do feel the ending could have been slightly more rounded and not quite as abrupt. I am also left still wondering why Luke left n the first place as this isn't too obvious either. I laughed, felt sad and was left feeling mostly satisfied at how things panned out. It is undeniably a great debut from nicole and I will be waiting for more from her!  Definitely worth reading!