Published by Self-Published on October 4, 2013
Genres/Lists: Fiction
Pages: 400
Read synopsis on Goodreads
I received this book for free from Closed the Cover Tour.
Buy the book: Amazon/Audible (this post includes affiliate links)
Confession: I’ve read a lot of Nora Roberts books in my lifetime. Despite her predictable story lines, she usually manages to bring me into the fold of the story to the point that I am just as invested as if it were the first time. So when I first read the summary for Living Again by L.L. Collins I thought I was going to be getting another pleasantly and predictable storyline.
Wrong. This self-published and brand-spaking new book is so much more than that. Sure, the basic plot sounds familiar: Boy meets girl, boy dies, girl sets down a path of isolation, and girl’s new way of life of is changed dramatically. But what L.L. Collins does differently is throw in a newborn baby, a second tortured soul, and pure, raw emotion. The combination will leave you breathless and, quite often, in tears. I’m not usually a big cryer in books but Collins managed to get me on multiple occasions.
What makes the book so great is that Collins doesn’t hold back when it comes to emotional pain. There is a fine line between overly-dramatic and skimming over the details and Collins strikes the perfect balance. At first, I thought that her short and matter-of-fact writing would impede an emotional response, but instead it enhanced it. Each sentence is carefully crafted to elicit an emotion and the strategy works.