If ever you were to NOT want to judge a book by its (back) cover, this would be that time. Jessica Lott’s debut novel is a heart-wrenching, soaring work of fiction that spans the depth of human emotion while telling a love story that just may surprise you.
The novel begins in present day with an obituary, but quickly takes the reader back fifteen years to the beginning of her life’s most torrid love affair – an emotional thrill-ride with stunning highs and lows with an older professor that is ill-fated from the beginning, and ends in the type of heartbreak that underscores her every decision and action going forward.
Skipping ahead back into present day, the pair are reunited unexpectedly, and what begins is a beautiful rekindling of their relationship, with the emotional baggage that comes with revisiting the ghosts of an old relationship growing lighter with each turn of the page, until the novel reaches it’s final crescendo.
As events unfold, you find yourself lost inside of this book: both consumed by the intensity of the relationship between the main characters and absorbed by a glimpse of a love that, oftentimes, feels unattainable in today’s world. Add to that the obsession in life of the road not taken, and the innate desire so many have to reexamine choices long since past, this book is sure to engross a variety of readers.