by Melissa Payne
A soul-stirring novel about the bonds between mother and child and the redemption that comes with facing the past and letting it go.
Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and—most heart-wrenching—her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident. Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman.
A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end” in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home. There’s also Star, a teenage runaway with a secret too painful to share. And the little boy with heart-shaped stones, who comes with a hope for reconciliation—and a warning.
Soon Jess learns that she’s not the only lost soul running from the ghosts of the past. She and Star have been brought together for a reason: to be saved by the very thing that destroyed them.
My take
This was probably one of my freebies from Amazon because it’s not my usual choice in reading material. I came across it when going through my list to find my next book and said oh why not. And it’s actually pretty good. There’s a bit of magic in it although you’re never quite sure. There’s a mystery buried in it although the mystery seemed pretty evident even though the way events were going to come together was not as clear. (Really trying not to do spoilers here.)
Kind of a difficult book to read because most of the characters were so broken but a good story overall.