Deanna 's Reviews > Everything We Keep

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3.5 Stars

Everyone is supposed to be excited and happy on their wedding day. All that waiting until they walk down the aisle to their beloved. However, twenty-six year old Aimee's wedding day has turned into a nightmare. Instead of walking down the aisle to marry the love of her life she is mourning the loss of him at his funeral. It's not just her fiance, James in the casket it's also all of their hopes and dreams that will be buried along with him.

"Same Church. Same flowers. Wrong Ceremony"

Meeting when they were eight years old, Aimee and James were first best friends then childhood sweethearts. After all those years together, they were the perfect couple. However, even though everything appeared to be perfect in their lives, things weren't exactly as they seemed. James and Aimee had a secret and James had secrets of his own, secrets that could devastate Aimee.

At the funeral, Aimee feels like she's about to break down and decides to slip away from the mass of people offering their condolences. As she leaves she's approched by a woman who gives her some shocking information about James. She wants to tell her more but Aimee's friends come along and whisk her away...

"Don't be naive, Aimee. People will take advantage of you."

It was supposed to be a quick business trip. James said he would be back in less than four days. Instead...James was gone. After missing for two months apparently his body washed up on shore.
What really happened on this business trip? Is James the man she thought he was? And what does this stranger know about what happened?

Will Aimee be able to move on without James or will she be pulled back into the past? The secrets that are revealed have the ability to break Aimee or make her stronger, and she will have some very difficult decisions to make.

I thought this was a pretty good debut novel. It flowed fairly well and it was a quick read. We get to see just how James and Aimee's friendship started and developed over the years through flashbacks. I can't imagine how heart breaking it would be losing someone and burying them on what was supposed to be your wedding day. How hard it would be to go on after spending so many years together.

The story had a decent amount of suspense. I was intrigued and really wanted to know what happened to James. With many twists and turns I wasn't even close to figuring out what actually happened and was quite surprised. However, I did find some of it to be a bit far-fetched.. Some of Aimee's decisions seemed a bit bizarre to me. But all in all I thought it was still an enjoyable story.

When I read the book I didn't realize there was going to be a sequel so I was a bit frustrated with the ending. Now that I know there's going to be another book I'm not as irritated. "What we leave behind" is the sequel to this novel and will be published in 2017.

Thank you to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing and Kerry Lonsdale for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.