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Review
5 EMOTIONAL, HEART-WRENCHING STARS
A.L. Jackson does it again, with another emotionally intense book that sucked me in, ripped my heart out, but left me weeping happy tears.
I fell in love with William and Maggie. When we meet them at the beginning of the book, they are both living lives that they hate and are both utterly broken and miserable. When William returns to his home town and his family after a six year self-imposed exile, he runs into Maggie, the girl that changed his whole life over the course of one summer six years previously, before both of their hearts were broken and they were torn apart.
With all of the years between them, and everything that they have both endured, they are both still deeply in love with each other, although the obstacle that was between them all those years ago, is still very much present, and now even more dangerous – Maggie’s violently abusive husband. But even the threat of that violence is not enough to stop the two soul mates from being drawn to each other.
“I don’t know how to stop loving you.”
*sniff* The scene where this line appears just broke me. I was a sobbing mess!
The story is told from both William and Maggie’s POV, so you get to see all of the intimate details as the timeline flicks between the present day and flashbacks to the summer where they met and fell in love. Their story is beautifully sweet but also heartbreakingly tragic. The emotion is just poured out onto the page and as a reader you feel everything that they feel.
The characters are very real. Both William and Maggie made questionable decisions in the past, but as their backstory unfolds, you understand why things happened the way they did. William’s family also play a big part in the story, and they are absolutely amazing. Loving, forgiving and unendingly supportive, I loved them all.
I’m not usually a fan of books featuring domestic abuse, but A.L. Jackson weaves her magic and creates a story that is absolutely incredible. The abuse is there, and it’s hard to read, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s the absolute love that William and Maggie feel for each other that carries the story – the way that William is there for Maggie, how he is prepared to fight for her and willing to do anything to make her safe, and Maggie finding her strength in that. It’s about the overwhelming knowledge that they belong together, finally clamining each other and their battle to be a family and heal from all that they have endured. And it was amazing!
I stayed up reading this book until after 3am this morning, and then was up again early to finish it. I cried, I cheered, and I cried some more. There is a happy ending, but it’s an intensely emotional ride to get to it. The final few chapters had me on the edge of my chair with my heart pounding. But it is balanced with an epilogue that ties the story up beautifully.
I absolutely loved this book. The writing is so stunningly beautiful, it firmly puts A.L. Jackson up there as one of my favourite authors. Her books are not just stories, they are an experience, and if you haven’t read one of her books yet – get on it!!!