4.5 Smooches
Synopsis
Sometimes the past bleeds into the future.
Bess, a wild party girl running from herself, literally falls victim to her demons when she collapses in the most unexpected of places.
Lane, a tightly wound, up-and-coming CEO who can’t seem to stop enabling his brother, doesn’t know what hit him when Bess falls at his feet and into his life.
It was a night she doesn’t remember, and one he can’t forget.
But rather than stay and help the needy college coed, Lane decides to teach his brother a long overdue lesson––a decision that later comes back to haunt him and only adds fury to the transgressions of his past he is already fleeing from.
Years later, Bess and Lane meet again. She doesn’t know him, and he doesn’t share that he knows what happened on that ill-fated night when she almost died. After all, he has a web of complicated lies from his own youth to protect.
Both are seeking salvation in the arms of others and ignoring the truth—that the only road to redemption lies in confronting your past.
When the past and present collide, is there any chance at redemption?
Review
“She was nothing. Yet she’d become somewhat epic in my mind over the last few years. Had she been the one chance for me to redeem myself?”
Redemption Lane is my first book by Rachel Blaufeld and I decided to go into blind without reading any reviews or the synopsis. I guessed from the cover that it would be somber and about . . . redemption. What I got was a story about to lost people making it though life a day at a time moving forward but still weighed down by their past. Beautifully written and engaging from the start I don’t know how I waited this long to try out this author but I am glad I did.
“And then he kissed me. Lane’s lips touched mine softly, and I braced myself against the wall. I was falling or floating, I didn’t know which.”
Lane is haunted by decisions he has made in his youth and will go out of his way to avoid any reminders of them including staying in the south far away from where the troubles of his past are. He keeps busy with work and mindless hook ups but avoids connections so that he does not repeat past mistakes. One of those mistakes was when he abandoned a helpless girl and never found out if she was ok.
“Blown to bits, I took time to visit my new favorite island destination known as orgasm by Lane,”
Bess is an addict on recovery, after hitting rock bottom using drugs and alcohol to escape the pain she has finally gotten and stayed clean living a simple life and working at a hotel. It is at that hotel where these two meet. Lane is there on work and not happy about being up north again and when he sees Bess he instantly knows that she is the girl that haunts him. The one he left behind. She doesn’t remember the stranger but still her pull toward him is no less strong. These two could not be more different and yet they cannot stay away from each other. But without working towards accepting the past they will never have a future. They never seem to stop making mistakes and at times you cringe but still their journey is not one you will want to miss.
“Bess Williams, you are magnificent.”
Told though multiple point of views, I founds the transitions smooth and the story flowed nicely. My one qualm would be the few instances of A.J.’s point of view, I didn’t like him from the moment I met him and hearing his voice in my head raged me (although to be fair the point of a good book is to feel emotion and rage is an emotion so on that note well done.) Often in books when we think about addiction and moving forward it is the man who just needs the love of a good woman to be whole again. This is one of the main reasons I loved this book. Not only was it the heroine, Bess, who struggles with addiction, but she worked and continues to work hard on staying sober. She makes a big point to keep to her schedule, which helps her fight the urges and even when she travels she knows where to find a meeting. She is strong and admirable and knows her limits and while Lane makes her crave and desire things she never thought she would she refuses to let him be her downfall. She worked hard to become who she is and someone she could like and she is not going back. I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves an emotional journey and I look forward to reading Jake’s (Lane’s twin) story in Absolution Road.
~miranda
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